Mass Arbitrations: Who Pays? Part I

Host Lynda A. Bennett is joined by Freda L. Wolfson, former Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey and Chair of Lowenstein's Alternative Dispute Resolution group; Michael A. Kaplan, partner in Lowenstein’s White Collar Criminal Defense group, and Ruth Fong Zimmerman, an associate in the Litigation Department, to talk about the emergence of mass arbitrations and mediations in the class action space. Mandatory arbitration clauses were originally intended as a way to avoid expensive class actions; now they are being leveraged by litigation funders to generate massive arbitration fees before anything is known about the asserted claims. Targeted advertising, automated claims filing systems, data aggregation, and even artificial intelligence, are being used to generate thousands of individual arbitration claims in what is essentially a mass arbitration. In this episode, the panel discusses this emerging trend, including the options available to companies hit with these types of requests and how the insurance industry may react to it.

Speakers:

The Honorable Freda L. Wolfson (ret.), Partner and Chair, Alternative Dispute Resolution
Lynda A. Bennett, Partner and Chair, Insurance Recovery
Michael A. Kaplan, Partner, White Collar Criminal Defense
Ruth Fong Zimmerman, Associate, Litigation