Texas Supreme Court Bails Out Bob Perry
 Alex Winslow, Executive Director of Texas Watch, released the following statement: “After years of forcing consumers into a lopsided binding arbitration process, the Court today carved out a special decision for the man who gives the Court more campaign cash than any other individual in the state...“This decision is little more than a bail out for a major political moneyman, and is the latest in a long line of pro-defendant rulings by our state’s highest court.”

U.S. Chamber shields corporations, rigs legal system at consumers' expense
"U.S. Chamber and its corporate financers are lobbying to keep abusive, binding mandatory arbitration clauses as the status quo.  Just ask Jamie Leigh Jones what she thinks of the status quo. "Jamie was raped, drugged, beaten, and then confined to a shipping container by KBR/Halliburton employees while working in Iraq.  Because of a clause placed in her employment contract, KBR is trying to force Jamie to submit to a binding, secret, non-appealable arbitration.  These are the types of corporations U.S. Chamber is trying to protect.

NASAA Calls on FINRA, SEC to Improve the Integrity of Securities Arbitration System by Removing Mandatory Industry Representative from Arbitration Panels
The North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA) today called upon the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to take immediate action to improve the fairness of the system of securities arbitration, beginning with the removal of the mandatory industry representative from arbitration panels used to resolve securities disputes involving customers and industry.

Despite arbitrator's ruling woman still fighting contractor
Patricia Dicorte alleges that contractor David Landrieu was supposed to fix flooding damage to her Lakeview home. Instead, she says he has caused more damage and that she is out about $89,000... Lisa Mitchell of the Better Business Bureau said the arbitrator found in favor of Dicorte. “To the tune of, I believe, $219,000.”...The case went to Judge Yada Magee, the colleague of another cousin of David Landrieu's, Judge Madeline Landrieu. Judge Magee threw out the arbitrator's decision... Dicorte said it's just like every other avenue she has pursued as she tries to resolve her complaints against David Landrieu. “Everything just disappears,” she complained. “I have to think because his last name is Landrieu.”

Binding Arbitration is a Circus - A Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus
A chance to win tickets for you and four of your friends to Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, playing at Madison Square Garden this Spring could end in Binding Arbitration.

Homeowners can sue builders over defects
Iowans who find defects in their homes can sue contractors for work-related damages years after the fact, even if they bought the house from previous owners, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled today. The court’s 6-0 decision reverses two lower-court rulings against a Clive couple, Mike and Bev Speight, who had tried to sue Walters Development Co. for water damage to their home. In 2005, the couple discovered that they could stick their fingers into the siding of their house, and found water spilling into their basement caused by faulty shingles and rain gutters. “We believe that Iowa law should follow the modern trend allowing a subsequent purchaser to recover against a builder for a breach of the implied warranty of workmanlike construction,” Justice Jerry Larson wrote in the 14-page ruling. Read Decision...

Binding Mandatory Arbitration Reform
A series of United States Supreme Court decisions have changed the meaning of the [Federal Arbitration] Act so that it now extends to disputes between parties of greatly disparate economic power, such as consumer disputes and employment disputes. As a result, a large and rapidly growing number of corporations are requiring millions of consumers and employees to give up their right to have disputes resolved by a judge or a jury, and instead submit their claims to binding arbitration.

The Ten Best Public Policies of 2007
The Arbitration Fairness Act, proposed this year in the United States Senate by Senator Russell Feingold (D-WI), protects against clandestine decision-making and corporate favoritism by invalidating pre-dispute BMA "agreements" between parties of unequal bargaining power. For safeguarding the right to trial by jury, where a body of law protects the rights of producer, consumer, employer, and employee alike, the AFA is one of the best policies of 2007.

How arbitration steals your day in court
If I told you there was a courtroom in America where consumers lose lawsuits to businesses 94 percent of the time, and there is no chance to appeal, you'd probably never want to go there.While you may have never heard of binding mandatory arbitration, it is part of nearly every significant transaction you engage in now. It's also become a controversial battleground over consumer protection in America, and on Thursday Congress held hearings debating legislation that would largely nullify many arbitration agreements. Binding mandatory arbitration clauses crept into consumer contracts during the late 1990s and are now standard practice. They arrived in the name of efficiency and tort reform... Public Citizen found one arbitrator had ruled 1,292 times during the span -- and only 21 times for the consumer. On one particularly busy day, he ruled on 68 cases -- all in favor of companies.