Class arbitration

U.S. Courts Cannot Infer Class Arbitration from Ambiguous Arbitration Clause

The U.S. Supreme Court (the Supreme Court) has been historically wary of permitting class arbitration (see previous blog post), especially in the absence of clearly defined limits or of express language permitting it in an arbitration agreement. The Supreme Court affirmed this restraint in a recent 5–4 decision, Lamps Plus, Inc., v. Varela, in which it held that courts cannot infer parties’ consent to class arbitration from an ambiguous arbitration clause in an employment contract.READ MORE

U.S. Supreme Court Rules on Enforceability of Individual Arbitration Agreements in Employment Contracts

On 21 May 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court (the Supreme Court) handed down its decision in Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis finding that arbitration agreements in which an employee agrees to arbitrate any claims against an employer on an individual rather than on a class or collective basis are enforceable and are not in violation of the National Labor Relations Act (the NLRA).

The judgment concerned three consolidated cases: Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis; Ernst & Young LLP v. Morris and NLRB v. Murphy Oil USA, Inc. As the Court noted, the three cases differed in detail but not in substance.

In previous decisions (see: AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion; American Express Co. v. Italian Colors Restaurant; DIRECTV, Inc. v. Imburgia), the Supreme Court had already ruled that companies were entitled to include individual arbitration clauses in their consumer contracts which explicitly precluded those consumers from resorting to class arbitration. In the present case, the Supreme Court had to rule on whether companies could also include individual arbitration clauses in their contract with their employees which required those employees to waive their rights to participate in class and collective actions.READ MORE