<
https://jacobin.com/2022/05/mass-arbitration-mandatory-agreements-uber-amazon>
"Last year, Uber turned a quarterly profit for the first time ever. But a major
obstacle stands in the way of the rideshare company repeating that achievement:
a $92 million bill owed to the American Arbitration Association over claims
that Uber discriminated against businesses when it said it was waiving Uber
Eats charges to certain black-owned restaurants after the police killing of
George Floyd.
Uber has been trying to sue its way out of paying the tab — but a recent New
York appeals court decision blocked their request for an injunction to stop the
arbitration association from collecting the bill.
Uber is one of several companies that has been targeted by a new legal tactic
for vindicating the rights of aggrieved consumers and employees: “mass
arbitration,” which is based around the very same tool that corporate America
has used for decades to insulate itself from legal responsibility.
The strategy relies on recruiting tens of thousands of injured customers or
employees of a company to simultaneously file claims requesting that their
complaints go to arbitration, a process in which a private mediator selected by
the targeted company referees the dispute. Unlike a class action lawsuit, each
arbitration claim must be litigated individually, one by one.
Victims of corporate malfeasance are turning to mass arbitration because it
offers a way to force companies to pay up for their misdeeds — and, in a world
where many companies forbid customers and employees from suing them, it is
often the only way to do so.
This new grassroots strategy suggests that corporate America’s favorite trick
of using arbitration rules to avoid liability could be losing some of its
potency. This legal tactic was further watered down earlier this week, when the
Supreme Court unanimously ruled that companies could lose their right to
arbitrate if they fail to invoke that privilege in a timely manner.
The costs and fees associated with responding to a single arbitration claim are
not particularly high. But when a company is hit with tens of thousands of such
claims at once, they mount quickly. Faced with tens or even hundreds of
millions of dollars in fees, many companies choose to settle out of court, or
permit a class action lawsuit against them instead, leading to hundreds of
millions of dollars in restitution for wronged customers and employees over the
past several years."
Via a limited share.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
