What Does the Arbitration Fairness Act of 2009 Have to Say About Commercial and Industry Arbitration Involving Sophisticated Parties?
Part V: Summing Up
This is the final part of our multi-part post on the Arbitration Fairness Act of 2009 (the “Fairness Act”). We did not address all aspects of the Fairness Act, but focused our attention on whether the Act may change the status quo in arbitrations involving only sophisticated, commercial entities.
So what does the Arbitration Fairness Act of 2009 have to say about commercial and industry arbitration involving sophisiticated parties? If you have been following our last six posts, you know the answer is not clear, and that the only thing that can be said with any degree of certainty is that the Fairness Act will result in litigation between sophisticated parties concerning the continuing viability of two fairly settled principles of arbitration law — severability and what we refer to as the Own Jurisdiction Rule. That may be good news to some and bad news to others. Continue Reading »
