Forced Arbitration Key Reports
Forced Arbitration: Unfair and Everywhere
September 14, 2009
Our report, “Forced Arbitration: Unfair and Everywhere,” shows that mandatory binding arbitration, or “forced arbitration,” is nearly ubiquitous in many industries. We found that seventy-five percent of companies in eight industries use forced arbitration. In most forced arbitration cases, consumers are stripped of their right to go to court over disputes when they open a bank or credit card account, obtain cell phone service, hire a stockbroker or buy a house. Read the report.
Home Court Advantage: How the Building Industry Uses Forced Arbitration to Evade Accountability
May 20, 2009
Millions of new home purchasers each year are forced into binding mandatory arbitration by deceptive “warranties,” and those warranties may violate the law in as many as 17 states. These warranties are particularly insidious because consumers often do not learn of their details until after moving into their new houses. The process is inherently secretive, and arbitration firms routinely flout the few laws that require them to disclose basic information about their cases. Read the report.
The Arbitration Debate Trap: How Opponents of Corporate Accountability Distort the Debate on Arbitration
July 29, 2008
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has painted a grossly inaccurate picture of the empirical evidence on binding mandatory arbitration, a comprehensive study issued today by Public Citizen reveals. In this type of arbitration, consumers lose their right to settle disputes in court and instead are routed to a private, secretive system that favors the company. Read the report.
The Arbitration Trap: How Credit Cards Companies Ensnare Consumers
September 27, 2007
This report details how arbitration firms and credit card companies enjoy a cozy, mutually beneficial relationship at the expense of consumers they force into binding mandatory arbitration. With only data from California available, the findings provide a glimpse of how arbitration traps consumers throughout the country in unfair, secret proceedings where for-profit arbitrators make the rules. Public Citizen's research uncovered consumers who spent years fending off collection agencies, cleaning up identity theft messes and struggling to bounce back from credit rating hits. Read the report.