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Thank you, National Arbitration Forum (NAF). Recently, two federal courts, a New Jersey district court and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, ruled that the consumers in the cases could not be forced into arbitration because the arbitrator designated in the contracts (NAF) was no longer in the consumer forced arbitration business.

Watch this interesting news video discussing forced arbitration clauses often inserted in the "very small" print of financial services contracts. Reporter Stacy Johnson mentions that the new Wall Street reform law has killed forced arbitration in a few circumstances and allows the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to eliminate or restrict it on a broader scale.

Readers of this blog have already heard a lot about AT&T v. Concepcion -- the upcoming case in which the U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether the Federal Arbitration Act preempts state-law rulings that class-action bans are unconscionable. 

All around the country, newspapers’ consumer journalists are taking notice and reporting on the injustice of forced arbitration. Most recently, Matthew Hathaway, columnist for the St. Louis-Post Dispatch, posted a short article on the “The Savvy Consumer” blog. While Hathaway reports on the biases and unfairness of the predatory corporate practice, he’s a tad overly optimistic that it may soon come to an end. 

Paul Bland of Public Justice and colleagues Claire Prestel and Melanie Hirsch examine the possible impact of ATT Mobility v. Concepcion, a forced arbitration case that the Supreme Court will hear in the fall. The Court will decide whether to grant companies free reign to ban class actions in the fine print of their contracts with consumers and employees.

Stephen Colbert has a hilarious segment on binding mandatory arbitration clauses in credit card agreements. The part on arbitration starts a little past two minutes in, but the whole piece is worth watching.

The Baltimore Sun's personal finance writer Eileen Ambrose yesterday provided an apt synopsis of forced arbitration and the need to change the status quo. The article described the all-too-common practice of businesses inserting forced arbitration clauses in the fine print of consumer contracts, which eliminate consumers' ability to go to court and force them to settle disputes in a corporate-controlled, biased forum.

The Wall Street Reform bill has a lot of stuff in it. If you have time to kill, you can pore through the actual text of the legislation here.

The Federal Trade Commission today issued a major report on debt collection and the forced arbitration of consumer collection disputes. Concluding that "the system for resolving consumer debt collection disputes is broken," the FTC recommends a series of sweeping reforms. The new report, Repairing A Broken System: Protecting Consumers in Debt Collection Litigation and Arbitration, reflects information gathered at roundtable discussions following a February 2009 report on the same subjects. The vote to issue today's report was 5-0.

The forced arbitration of claims arising out of statutory protections for consumers and employees has become a hot topic at the Kagan hearings.