Tomorrow, the United States Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in American Express Corp. v. Italian Colors Restaurant, et al. (No. 12-133). The appeal from the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit addresses whether the Federal Arbitration Act allows a court to invalidate an arbitration agreement that does not permit class arbitration of a federal law claim. In the case, a number of small businesses, including Italian Colors R

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During 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court decided several cases related to arbitration: On January 10, 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down CompuCredit Corporation v. Greenwood. The issue in CompuCredit was whether claims under the Credit Repair Organizations Act are subject to arbitration. The Court held that because the Credit Repair Organizations Act is silent on whether claims can proceed in an arbitrable forum, the Federal Arbitration Act requ

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Today, the U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari to R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company v. Montana, No. 09-911. The question presented was whether the Montana Supreme Court violated the Federal Arbitration Act by refusing to compel arbitration of a dispute between tobacco companies and settling states that courts of other states and territories have held arbitrable under the plain terms of the nationwide Master Settlement Agreement. Links to the case br

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Today, the U.S. Supreme court granted certiorari to AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion, No. 09-893. The Ninth Circuit opinion is available here. The question presented is: Whether the Federal Arbitration Act preempts States from conditioning the enforcement of an arbitration agreement on the availability of particular procedures–here, class-wide arbitration–when those procedures are not necessary to ensure that the parties to the arbitra

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As previously discussed, today the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments for Bilski v. Kappos, a high-stakes software patent case (the transcript is here). In Bilski, the Federal Circuit rejected patent claims involving a method of hedging risks in commodities trading. The U.S. Supreme Court is now asked to decide whether the Patent Act contemplates the patentability of business methods –which include software patents. Links to the case docume

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