Part IVA: Who Decides? By Philip J. Loree Jr. I. Introduction In Part III (here) we examined the background of Stolt-Nielsen and identified four issues that the United States Supreme Court will likely confront when it decides the case. In this part IVA we consider the first issue: Who decides whether class arbitration can be imposed on the parties when their arbitration agreements are silent on that point? Put differently, is the question one of

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Part III: Background and Procedural History of the Stolt-Nielsen Case By Philip J. Loree Jr. Introduction Back when the buzz about Stolt-Nielsen focused on how the court breathed new life into the “manifest disregard of the law” standard, the facts of the case were not nearly as important as its discussion of the law. Ordinarily, though, the practice of law is the practice of facts, and as respects the question whether the Second Circuit’s holdin

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Part II: The Legal Landscape: Green Tree Financial Corp. v. Bazzle By Philip J. Loree Jr. Introduction As discussed in Part I, Stolt-Nielsen is a do-over of sorts. Back in 2003 the United States Supreme Court set out to decide in Green Tree Financial Corp. v. Bazzle whether imposing class arbitration on parties whose agreement is silent on that point is consistent with the Federal Arbitration Act. But that never happened because it turned out the

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Part I: Introduction By Philip J. Loree Jr. Introduction The Loree Reinsurance and Arbitration Law Forum is delighted to guest post once again on Karl Bayer’s and Victoria VanBuren’s wonderful ADR blog, Disputing. Because Victoria and I have both written fairly extensively about Hall Street Assoc. v. Mattel, Inc, 128 S. Ct. 1396 (2008), and about two of the most frequently cited cases construing Hall Street’s dictum on manifest disregard of the l

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By Peter Friedman Part One – The Problem: Mandatory Arbitration clauses that preclude class relief in consumer agreements make arbitration a means of precluding consumers from obtaining any feasible relief. Calling “Alternative Rock” a certain style of music some students at liberal arts colleges enjoy has long given the music a sheen of integrity, the kind of integrity parodied as pretense by calling those fans “granola eaters” who wear Birkenst

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