Arbitration Fairness Act

SIFMA, as part of the Coalition to Preserve Arbitration, provides comments to the leadership of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee strongly opposing the Arbitration Fairness Act (S.1782). The Coalition feels the legislation would retroactively declare unenforceable potentially millions of existing arbitration provisions and would prohibit the use of pre-dispute arbitration agreements in consumer, employment, brokerage, and franchise contracts. In addition, it would call into question arbitration agreements relating to “contracts or transactions between parties of unequal bargaining power.” The bill will effectively raise the cost of dispute resolution for both consumers and businesses and eliminate the ability of consumers and employees to obtain redress for many types of wrongdoing, and increase the caseload of our already overburdened courts as well as the price of consumer services and products for all Americans.