Researchers at Cornell University studied hundreds of cases where consumer / employees were forced into arbitration and found that the arbitrator ruled with the company 90-95% of the time. This can be attributed to what dccoolgai points out below.
Other Cons of arbitration you can confirm with readings:
- Arbitration can occur in secret, with the public finding out nothing about a company's illegal behavior. This is bad for a number of reasons I won't get into.
- Arbitration does not need to follow the rules of discovery or evidence found in a public court. This is most often in the favor of the company.
- Arbitration clauses mostly forbid banding together as a class. Which means you have to fight your case on your own, often times without a lawyer.
- Arbitration allows companies to get away with wage theft, discrimination, sexual harassment, illegal fees & fines, etc. b/c in arbitration their is no requirement for injunctive relief.
- Arbitration was never designed to be used the way it is used today. The Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) was passed by congress in the 1920s to allow businesses to engage in commerce and use an alternate form of justice (arbitration) they both agreed & negotiated on instead of public courts. Today, the reason arbitration is used in a way other than congress intended is because in consumer and employer relationships - there is NO equal bargaining power. Most arbitration agreements are never negotiated between consumers/employees and the company - its a take it or leave it contract. This is not how the FAA was conceived and not what congress intended.
Other Cons of arbitration you can confirm with readings: - Arbitration can occur in secret, with the public finding out nothing about a company's illegal behavior. This is bad for a number of reasons I won't get into.
- Arbitration does not need to follow the rules of discovery or evidence found in a public court. This is most often in the favor of the company.
- Arbitration clauses mostly forbid banding together as a class. Which means you have to fight your case on your own, often times without a lawyer.
- Arbitration allows companies to get away with wage theft, discrimination, sexual harassment, illegal fees & fines, etc. b/c in arbitration their is no requirement for injunctive relief.
- Arbitration was never designed to be used the way it is used today. The Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) was passed by congress in the 1920s to allow businesses to engage in commerce and use an alternate form of justice (arbitration) they both agreed & negotiated on instead of public courts. Today, the reason arbitration is used in a way other than congress intended is because in consumer and employer relationships - there is NO equal bargaining power. Most arbitration agreements are never negotiated between consumers/employees and the company - its a take it or leave it contract. This is not how the FAA was conceived and not what congress intended.
You can read more about it here: https://www.nela.org/NELA/index.cfm?event=showPage&pg=mandar...