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The Arbitration Process in Chester County

By: Christopher L. Turner If you are bringing a legal claim in a Pennsylvania in Common Pleas Court, you should be aware that the counties utilize a compulsory arbitration program containing its own rules and procedures that must be carefully observed.  For example, in Chester County, all civil cases at law where the amount …

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Securities Arbitration: FINRA May Reconstitute Panels

By: Stephen P. Lagoy The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), which administers the arbitration program to which brokerage customers must bring their complaints, is considering using arbitration panels comprising all “non-industry” members.  Presently, panels must include at least one industry member among the three-person panel.  The remaining member(s) are “public” (i.e. from outside the …

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Chrysler Changes Its Tune On Terminated Dealers

By: Stephen P. Lagoy After initially indicating that terminated dealers would be reinstated through the federally-mandated arbitration procedure or not at all [see blog post: Chrysler and GM Take Different Approaches to Dealer Arbitration], Chrysler now says that it will offer to reinstate 50 of the 789 dealerships it terminated last year.  The …

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Chrysler and GM Take Different Approaches to Dealer Arbitration

By: Stephen P. Lagoy Unlike GM, which has notified more than half of its terminated dealers that they will be offered reinstatement without going to arbitration, Chrysler has announced that dealer reinstatement will occur through arbitration, or not at all.  The key difference in the approaches of the two auto manufacturers may lie in …

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Managing Exposure Through Carefully Crafted Arbitration Clauses

Pennsylvania businesses seeking to minimize class action exposure and generally seeking to enforce arbitration provisions should be aware of a recent decision issued by the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Clerk v. Ace Cash Express, Inc..  Historically, Pennsylvania courts have enforced arbitration provisions in contracts. Recently, the Court (applying Pennsylvania law) …

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Baseball Arbitration: Part III

By: Stephen P. Lagoy Baseball arbitrations (see previous blog posts here and here) have become increasingly rare as the owners and players opt to negotiate a contract rather than place their fate in the hands of an arbitration panel. The only exception thus far this year has been the case of

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1400 GM and Chrysler Dealers Request Arbitration

By: Stephen P. Lagoy The American Arbitration Association reports that more than 1400 auto dealerships have already applied for arbitration under the government-mandated program for terminated dealerships. AAA will assemble panels to decide the cases over the next 6 months but expects that many cases will settle. For more on the reaction of both …

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GM outlines arbitration process for dealer reinstatement arbitration

By: Stephen P. Lagoy General Motors is prepared to proceed with a Congressionally-mandated program that will allow 2000 of GM’s closed dealerships to appeal the closure decision through an independent arbitration process. Dealers who want to file for reinstatement must do so through the American Arbitration Association and commence arbitration by Jan. 25. Under …

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GM and Chrysler Dealers Can Arbitrate

By: Donald C. Turner Was your dealership terminated by GM/Chrysler? The United States Congress, as part of a $1.1 trillion spending bill, has voted to give terminated General Motors and Chrysler dealers the right to challenge their terminations through arbitration. This legislation requires the arbitrator to balance the economic interest of the covered dealership …

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Baseball Arbitration: Part II

By: Stephen P. Lagoy At this time of year, sports pages are filled with articles about whether or not major league baseball teams have “offered arbitration” to their free agent players. What does this mean and what are the implications of the decision? For a primer on this subject, see http://bats.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/the-arbitration-decision/. For a …

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