We are happy to announce that Disputing has teamed up with the Loree Reinsurance and Arbitration Law Forum to create the Commercial and Industry Arbitration and Mediation Group. The Commercial and Industry Arbitration and Mediation Group is a forum for the open discussion of issues and sharing of information concerning commercial and industry arbitration, mediation and other forms of alternative dispute resolution. We invite you to register here.

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If you’d like to know how disputes are successfully resolved by mediation, Peter A. Scarpato had an interesting guest-post at the Loree Reinsurance and Arbitration Law Forum yesterday about how mediation works. The piece provides an invaluable insight into the mediation process by walking the reader through an actual mediation case. Good stuff. Check out the post here: Guest Post – Mediating Reinsurance Disputes: A Case Study. Technor

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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held last week that nonsignatories plaintiffs were bound by the arbitration agreement between decedent and his employer. In Graves v. BP American Inc., No. 08-40575 (5th Cir. May 6, 2009), plaintiffs are the surviving relatives of an employee of defendant JV Industrial Companies, who died in a work-related accident at a BP facility in Texas. The plaintiffs sued under the Texas wrongful death statute

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Mark A. Shank and John L. Turner from Gruber Hurst, Johansen & Hail, LLP wrote a timely article about arbitration, published this month by the Texas Bar Journal. The authors do an excellent job at explaining the virtues of arbitration (speed, informality, and low cost) and at the same time, address the latest challenges to mandatory arbitration by legislation introduced in Congress and the Texas Legislature. If you missed the article, here is

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Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Arthur Andersen LLP v. Carlisle, No. 08–146, 2009 WL 1174853 (May 4, 2009). Justice Scalia delivered the majority opinion, joined by Justices Kennedy, Thomas, Ginsburg, Breyer, and Alito. Justice Souter filed a dissenting opinion, in which Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Stevens joined. The Court decided the following issues: Whether appellate courts have jurisdiction under Section 16(a) of the FAA to r

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The American Arbitration Association recently introduced Non-Binding Resolution Services (arbitration and mediation) for disputes between businesses & consumers and employers & employees. Technorati Tags: arbitration, ADR, law, mediation, non-binding arbitration, consumer arbitration, employee arbitration

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Yesterday, former Democratic senator and presidential candidate George McGovern spoke out against the Employee Free Choice Act of 2009 (S. 560, status, previously blogged here): Last year, I wrote on these pages that I was opposed to this bill because it would eliminate secret ballots in union organizing elections. However, the bill has an additional feature that isn’t often mentioned but that is just as troublesome — compulsory arbit

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Last week, the U.S. Senate introduced its own version of the “Arbitration Fairness Act of 2009” (H.R. 1020, status). The new bill ( S. 931, status), also titled “Arbitration Fairness Act of 2009,” is similar, but not identical to H.R. 1020. The Senate bill is discussed in detail by Philip J. Loree Jr. in The Senate Weighs in With Its Own Arbitration Fairness Act. Previous Coverage: Myths of Consumer Protection Law (May 4)

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Via the ADR Prof Blog, we learned that the American College of Trial Lawyers Task Force on Discovery and the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System released a report on March 11, 2009. The report recommends, among other things, that courts raise the possibility of pre-trial mediation and other alternative resolution processes. The full report is here . Technorati Tags: arbitration, ADR, law,

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