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National Arbitration Forum Ends Administration of Consumer Arbitrations

Within the last week, as part of a settlement with the Minnesota Attorney General, the National Arbitration Forum decided to voluntarily cease accepting new consumer arbitration case filings in response to mounting legal and legislative challenges.

Unfortunately, American consumers now will have no meaningful alternative to length and costly court litigation, a fact that the National Arbitration Forum acknowledged in its July 19th statement.

Sunday's statement explains that the FORUM lacks the necessary resources to defend against increasing legal challenges to arbitration on all fronts. It is important to note that the Minnesota Attorney General's complaint did not allege that arbitration proceedings administered by the FORUM were unfair. In fact, as stated in the FORUM's July 14th statement, this issuing of fair and just decisions was ensured by the independence of the neutral arbitrators who decided consumer arbitrations for the FORUM. The lawsuit instead took issue with the FORUM's communications.

Effective Friday, July 24, 2009, the FORUM will no longer accept any new arbitration case filings involving an individual consumer and business entity where the dispute involves consumer debt, credit cards, consumer loans, telecommunications services, utilities, healthcare services, or consumer leases.

This change does not impact the FORUM's administration of Internet domain name disputes, personal injury protection claims, and cargo disputes that are under the supervision of the Internet Corporation of Assigned Name and Numbers, the New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance, and the American Moving and Storage Association, respectively.

Full post as published by National Arbitration Forum Blog on July 23, 2009 (boomark / email).