Recently the U.S. Supreme Court granted the petition for certiorari in Smith v. Spizzirri, which presents the question of whether § 3 of the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) requires district courts to issue a stay pending arbitration or allows courts the discretion to dismiss the suit when all claims are subject to arbitration.
In response to a petition filed last week by a number of consumer advocacy groups, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB or Bureau) announced that it will be seeking public input on a possible rule that would curtail mandatory pre-dispute arbitration provisions.
Today the U.S. Supreme Court issued a 5-4 decision in Coinbase, Inc. v. Bielski, holding that a district court must stay its proceedings while an interlocutory appeal on the question of arbitrability is pending. The decision resolves a circuit split on the question of whether such a stay is mandatory or discretionary. Justice Kavanaugh
Mindful of the impending retirement of many millions of investors in the “baby boomer” generation, which hold a substantial amount of the world’s wealth, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) continues to heavily monitor its member firms supervision of their registered financial advisors who service vulnerable and elderly investor customers. For example, last month FINRA
As any Wall Street litigator knows, in the securities industry, it is typical for brokerage firms to incentivize their employed financial advisers with significant upfront compensation at the beginning of a relationship or even at the beginning of each new financial year. These up-front payments are often structured as “forgivable loans” and memorialized in promissory
Financial services industry groups are staunchly opposing a proposal by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB or Bureau) to require supervised nonbank entities to provide information about their use of certain terms and conditions in standard-form contracts. The CFPB would then compile this information into a registry available to the public. In individual letters dated
Recently, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals held an arbitration provision impermissibly blocked rights afforded to a retirement plan participant under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) and was therefore unenforceable.
As background, in Harrison v. Envision Management Holding, Inc. (Envision), the plaintiff, a former employee of Envision and participant in Envision’s defined contribution
On January 19, a California Court of Appeals issued a decision calling into question the evidentiary value of electronic signatures. Dicta in the opinion directly contradicts a previous ruling in Gamboa v. Northeast Community Clinic, where the court stated the difference between physical and electronic signatures is a “distinction without a legal difference” because
As forecasted in its 2022 Fall Rulemaking Agenda discussed here, today the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) published a proposed rule with request for public comments that would require certain nonbank covered entities, with limited exceptions, to submit information on terms and conditions in their form contracts that “seek to waive or limit