Regular readers of ThePopTort know we find few things more delicious than exposing corporate hypocrisy
(here, here, here). You also know how critical we have been of mandatory arbitration clauses that so often deny justice to injured consumers (here, here, here).
You can imagine then, how we’ve been feasting on a recent study profiled
in the New York Times that found corporate executives who “routinely sing the praises of
arbitration clauses” when dealing with consumers, seldom impose such
agreements upon themselves.
The study, that included contracts by 21 different telecommunications
and financial service companies, found mandatory arbitration clauses
jammed into 75 percent of consumer agreements, but just 24 percent of
contracts overall. And in previous studies, the report’s authors found
that just 11 percent of companies used arbitration clauses when
contracting with fellow businesses.
Companies say that arbitration is “a fair and cost-saving process,” said
Theodore Eisenberg, a law professor from Cornell and one of the study’s
authors, but “if they believe that is true across the board, why don’t
they insist on it when they contract with one another?”
Oh, I don’t know—could it be…hypocrisy?
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