Philadelphia Trial Lawyer Max Kennerly : Business and Commercial Litigation : Civil Attorney : The Beasley Firm : Philadelphia Pennsylvania

An interesting aside from Sovereign Bank v. BJ's Wholesale Club, Inc., 533 F.3d 162 (3d Cir. 2008), a complex business dispute discussed in my prior post.

Here's the deposition testimony given by a Visa corporate representative, on which the Third Circuit relied in reversing summary judgment in favor of the Acquirer:

Q: [by Acquirer's counsel] Is it fair to say that the operating regulations are not intended to benefit a single group of participants, but the Visa payment system as a whole?

Objection. Leading.

A: [by Visa rep] It's fair to say that the core purpose of the operating regulations is to set up the conditions for participation in the system, to set up rules and standards that apply to that ultimately for the benefit of the Visa payment system, the members that participate in it and other stakeholders such as cardholders, merchants and others who may participate in the system as well. (emphasis added).

Q: They may have some incidental benefit; is that correct?

Objection

Leading, and calls for a legal conclusion.

A: The bylaws and operating regulations, by their terms, apply only to members. So to the extent you mean they might have benefits beyond the rules that apply to other stakeholders, that's correct. They're not directly parties to these rules. (emphasis added)

Stop for one second and consider: these questions were asked by the Acquirer's counsel. They were blatantly leading ("is it fair to say") and tried to get legal conclusions ("incidental benefit"), resulting in the Visa corporate representative rejecting their argument, providing fodder for the Third Circuit to overturn their summary judgment.

I don't mean to question the tactical decisions of the Acquirer's lawyers. Indeed, given the absence of other deposition excerpts in support of the Issuer's argument, there seems to have been a reasonable basis for the Acquirer's lawyer to think the Visa corporate representative was going to give them exactly what they wanted to hear.

But the representative did not, and instead gave the appellate court grounds to overturn summary judgment when, as mentioned above, it appears there was little other testimony favorable to the Issuer.

Just something to keep in mind: as tempting as the coup de grace may be, it rarely works as planned.

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Courtesy of the complicated mess that is Sovereign Bank v. BJ's Wholesale Club, Inc., 533 F.3d 162 (3d Cir. 2008), in which credit card "Issuers" sued credit card "Acquirers" and "Merchants" (Acquirers are the companies that process transactions for the Merchants) after a bunch of credit card numbers were stolen from the Merchant.

The big issue is: are Issuers intended beneficiaries of the Merchant and Acquirer's agreement with the Visa network, which includes a number of anti-fraud regulations that the Merchant and Acquirer allegedly didn't follow?

Historically, under Pennsylvania law, "in order for a third party beneficiary to have standing to recover on a contract, both contracting parties must have expressed an intention that the third-party be a beneficiary, and that intention must have affirmatively appeared in the contract itself." Scarpitti v. Weborg, 530 Pa. 366, 609 A.2d 147, 149 (Pa. 1992) (citation omitted). Sovereign appropriately concedes that it is not an express third-party beneficiary of the Visa-Fifth Third Member Agreement. However, in Scarpitti, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court adopted § 302 of the Restatement (Second) of Contracts. Id. That provision allows an "intended beneficiary" to recover for breach of contract even though the actual parties to the contract did not express an intent to benefit the third party. Section 302 provides as follows:

Intended and Incidental Beneficiaries

 (1) Unless otherwise agreed between promisor and promisee, a beneficiary of a promise is an intended beneficiary if recognition of a right to performance in the beneficiary is appropriate to effectuate the intentions of the parties and either

(a) the performance of the promise will satisfy an obligation of the promisee to pay money to the beneficiary; or

(b) the circumstances indicate that the promisee intends to give the beneficiary the benefit of the promised performance.

(2) An incidental beneficiary is a beneficiary who is not an intended beneficiary.

Got all that? Summary judgment reversed, based upon a memorandum and deposition testimony indicating that the regulations were for the benefit of all the members, as discussed in the next post.

Update: for some reason, movable type ate most of my post, which has been corrected.

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What on earth were they doing?

 Following negotiations, on November 12, 2002, the parties entered into a settlement and release agreement (release agreement) ...

On November 8, 2004, [ESI] filed a praecipe for Writ of Summons. [ESI] thereafter filed a five count complaint on April 7, 2005. In their complaint, [ESI] asserted that the release agreement was invalid because [LSI] induced them to sign it by means of fraudulent misrepresentations. On May 1, 2006, by the consent of [ESI], the trial court issued an order discontinuing counts III, IV and V of their complaint. Accordingly, only counts I and II of [ESI's] complaint proceeded to resolution on summary judgment. ...

On August 7, 2006, the trial court granted LSI's motion for summary judgment and this Court affirmed that decision on October 1, 2007. ...

On October 18, 2006, counsel for ESI sent a letter to the American Arbitration Association (AAA), indicating that the CA entered into by the parties and two amendments to the CA provide for arbitration and that having received no response to its September 12, 2006 letter to counsel for LSI, ESI was "now request[ing] that the American Arbitration Association initiate the process through which an arbitrator will be appointed for the claim initiated by [ESI]." ...

By letter, dated October 30, 2006, ESI's counsel informed the AAA that its October 18th letter was not a formal demand for arbitration, but rather was a request for advice "as to how to proceed" and that if a case number had been assigned it should be voided. Thereafter, the AAA closed the matter, but on November 21, 2006, ESI again corresponded with the AAA and formally demanded that arbitration be initiated against LSI.  ...

LSI responded to ESI's November 21, 2006 letter, again asserting that the claim ESI was attempting to submit to arbitration was the same as the claim that ESI agreed to withdraw with prejudice during the pre-trial conciliation before Judge Scanlon and as memorialized by the May 1, 2006 court order. ...

Receiving no response to its December 1, 2006 letter, LSI filed a complaint on December 14, 2006, seeking "a declaratory judgment that [ESI] cannot re-litigate in arbitration a claim that was previously dismissed with prejudice…."

LSI Title Agency, Inc. v. Evaluation Servs., 2008 PA Super 126.

Big surprise: ESI lost. They can't arbitrate the same claims they permitted to be dismissed "with prejudice." (As an aside: they tried to get a new claim in by saying they were arbitrating "breach of the duty of good faith and fair dealing," which, the court reminded, is not an independent claim outside of breach of contract.)

It's simple: arbitration is not a parallel universe, where collateral litigation is but a passing fancy. If you submit your claim to one or the other, then that's that (like here). There are limited ways to preserve the options initially, but, once you go through the gauntlet, they're not going to let you try it again on the other side.

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Defendant here did a splendid job of waiving its rights and annoying Judge Pollak:

Second, defendant, in a footnote, suggests that this matter should be referred for arbitration in accordance with the grievance procedures outlined in the CBA. See Pl.'s Ex. 4, at § 1.05-09. Defendant's presentation of this argument is, to say the least, underwhelming. Whether a dispute is subject to mandatory arbitration is a question of too much consequence to be relegated to a one-sentence footnote in an opposition to a motion for summary judgment. Section 3 of the Federal Arbitration Act is instructive:

 If any suit or proceeding be brought in any of the courts of the United States upon any issue referable to arbitration under an agreement in writing for such arbitration, the court in which such suit is pending, upon being satisfied that the issue involved in such suit or proceeding is referable to arbitration under such an agreement, shall on application of one of the parties stay the trial of the action until such arbitration has been had in accordance with the  terms of the agreement, providing the applicant for the stay is not in default in proceeding with such arbitration.

9 U.S.C. § 3 (emphasis added). Parties desiring an order compelling arbitration must make application to the court for such an order. The manner of this application should, in accordance with Rule 7(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, be a formal motion. Such a motion should, in accordance with Local Rule 7.1(c), be accompanied by a memorandum explaining the grounds for the party's request. Here, rather than following these basic rules for requesting action from a federal district court, defendant has styled its request for relief as an alternative argument (that is, alternative to its main argument, which appears in the text of its opposition papers, that summary judgment is inappropriate on the merits) and tucked it into a footnote.

The court will deny defendant's alternative request for arbitration for three reasons.

First, the request is not made in the form of a motion, as Rule 7(b) requires, nor it is briefed, as Local Rule 7.1(c) requires. Few rules of civil procedure are as easy to follow as Rule 7(b) and Local Rule 7.1(c). All these rules require is a formal  [*21] motion and a statement of grounds. If defendant cannot be bothered to submit a formal motion and a statement of grounds, then it cannot be serious about the relief it purports to desire. Moreover, the court could not easily rule on defendant's request, as the court has not been provided a complete copy of the arbitration portion of the CBA. The copy submitted by plaintiffs does not include anything following the third line of § 1.09, which makes sense given that this section has nothing to do with plaintiffs' argument. Defendant, however, has not submitted a complete copy to accompany its footnote request, nor has it made any argument as to how the grievance procedure works or how it applies. Without providing a complete copy of the arbitration agreement and some explanation of why defendant believes it applies here, the court cannot find that defendant has adequately demonstrated that this dispute is subject to arbitration.

Second, defendant has waived any right to arbitration by not raising the issue in motions practice before now. Although waiver by delay is not favored, the Third Circuit has held that the right to arbitration is waived when defendant's delay causes prejudice. Hoxworth v. Blinder, Robinson & Co., 980 F.2d at 912, 926-27 (3d Cir. 1992). Here, defendant has, without a peep, submitted to full discovery in this matter. Discovery is now complete, and the case, having been pending for more than a year, is ready for disposition, either by summary judgment or by trial. Plaintiffs have doubtless spent substantial time, effort, and expense in getting this case ready for summary judgment practice and trial. The sheer number of exhibits and depositions submitted attests to plaintiffs' efforts, which, particularly considering that this is not a high-dollar-value case, are significant. Moreover, the arbitration procedure outlined in those portions of the CBA available to the court do not appear to contemplate discovery. Thus, having accepted the benefit of discovery from plaintiffs, and having put plaintiffs to the expense of discovery, defendant should not now be allowed to stay these proceedings and access an arbitral forum. See id. at 926. The court acknowledges that it appears that defendant raised the issue of arbitration in its answer, and that there has not been, before now, any other substantial formal motions practice 6 (aside from the motions practice associated with vacating defendant's default), id. at 927; nevertheless,  the court believes that, for the reasons just discussed, submitting this case to arbitration at this late stage would cause plaintiff prejudice, and should not be allowed.

Third, defendant's alternative request for an order compelling arbitration bears a striking resemblance to forum shopping. The thrust of its opposition to plaintiff's motion for summary judgment is that this court should deny plaintiff's motion on the merits. But, just in case the court disagrees, it attempts to preserve an argument for arbitration in a footnote. This form of argument is not attractive, nor is it persuasive.

Ibew Local Union No. 380 Health & Welfare Fund v. Travis Electric, Inc., 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 58037 (E.D. Pa. July 31, 2008)(emphasis added).

What were they thinking? The only good explanation I can think of is that the defendant didn't actually want to arbitrate, and decided such long ago, yet tucked in the remark as some form of collateral persuasion, where you toss in barely-relevant arguments in the hopes that it will, by sheer inertia, carry your other arguments further.

Otherwise, someone dropped the ball, or perhaps never even picked up the ball since they were so busy churning the billable hours on the litigation...

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So sayeth 3si Sec. Sys. v. Protek, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 56283 (E.D. Pa. July 23, 2008), more routine commercial litigation:

The gist of the action doctrine "precludes plaintiffs from re-casting ordinary breach of contract claims into tort claims." eToll, Inc. v. Elias/Savion Adver., 811 A.2d 10, 14 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2002) citing Bash v. Bell Tel. Co., 601 A.2d 825, 829 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1992). The difference between a cause of action for tort and breach of contract is that "tort actions lie for breaches of duties imposed by law as a matter of social policy, while contract actions lie only for breaches of duties imposed by mutual consensus agreements between particular individuals." Bash, 601 A.2d at 829. A breach of contract may give rise to a tort claim only when defendant's wrongful conduct is the gist of the action, and the contract is collateral. Pittsburgh Constr. Co. v. Griffith, 834 A.2d 572, 582 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2003) citing Bash, 601 A.2d at 829)

To successfully prove a negligence claim a plaintiff must demonstrate the following elements: (1) a duty of care was owed by defendant; (2) defendant breached this duty; and (3) the breach resulted in injury. McCandless v. Edwards, 908 A.2d 900, 904 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2006) (citations omitted). Because Defendant's obligation to provide Plaintiff with FlexPac batteries arose from the contract and not from a general duty of care, Plaintiff's negligence claim should be barred by the gist of the action doctrine.

In Factory Market v. Schuller Intl, defendant guaranteed plaintiff it would install a watertight roof. 987 F. Supp. 387, 388 (E.D. Pa. Jan. 9, 1997). Defendant promised to pay for any repairs needed to maintain the roof in a watertight condition. Id. at 389. From the onset "the roof was plagued with leaking problems," which defendant attempted to fix on a number of occasions. Id. Upon various unsuccessful  attempts by defendant to repair the roof, plaintiff brought suit against defendant alleging breach of contract, negligence, and fraud. Id. at 391. The court held that plaintiff's negligence claim sounded more in contract than in tort. Id. at 394. Plaintiff merely alleged that defendant's repairs were negligently performed, and as a result the roof was not watertight despite defendant's guarantee. Id. at 394-95. The court ruled that defendant did not owe plaintiff a duty of care; rather defendant's obligation to repair the faulty roof was imposed by way of the contract, and without the contract plaintiff "simply would not have [had] a claim." Id. at 395. Therefore, the court barred plaintiff's negligence claim. Id.

(emphasis added).

Without fail, defendants raise the "gist of the action" doctrine in every single breach of contract case that also includes other claims. It doesn't matter if the other claim is unjust enrichment, tortious interference, fraud, defamation, professional malpractice, or any other entirely appropriate claim that can rest alongside a breach of contract. If there's a contract, and there's another claim, the preliminary objections / 12(b)(6) are inevitable.

And it's usually wrong.

The doctrine is simple: the "gist of the action" doctrine precludes negligence claims where, under the facts alleged, the defendant has no duty to the plaintiff except for those created by contract. The "gist" is contractual -- there are no duties between the parties except for those created by the contract.

A reminder: everyone has a duty not to defraud others. Everyone has a duty not to tortious interfere in others' business. Everyone has a duty not to defame others. If someone defrauded you, that's wrong; you don't need to first have a signed and sealed Agreement Not To Defraud Me.

Ergo, there's really only one instance in which, at the complaint stage, the "gist of the action" doctrine applies: where a complaint alleges breach of contract and negligence based solely upon that contract. That a plaintiff cannot do.

Fraud and breach of contract? That's fine -- indeed, they're usually entirely appropriate forms of alternative relief which a plaintiff should allege if they have the factual basis.

But if you're alleging negligence, there must be an independent duty outside from the contract itself.

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In response to shareholder upheaval, billions in losses, and a 60% fall in stock price, CitiGroup completely revamps its Board of Directors:

Board member John Deutch, who previously held no chairmanships, has been named to lead the audit and risk committee, Citigroup said in a July 22 press release. Richard Parsons, former chair of the compensation committee, will head the nomination committee, while former nomination panel chair Alain Belda will lead the compensation committee.

Whoa, there, slow down. That's a lot of change for just a year of failure.

Thank goodness they'll wait another year or two and see how it goes before rocking the boat again.

That's why "I still believe there will be a continuing move to private equity, [with] a corresponding rise in intra-company commercial litigation and arbitration there, as I wrote before."

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John F. Olson and Amy L. Goodman, partners at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, follow up on Marty Lipton's article (which I previously discussed here):

In our upcoming paper, we will address some of the issues that deserve focus from shareholders, directors, business executives and other interested stakeholders.

• First, and not necessarily in order of importance, we need to develop effective methods of board/shareholder communication that build on new electronic capabilities but are not burdensome and do not increase liability risks.

• Second, boards and business executives need to effectively and regularly communicate corporate strategy and the board’s oversight role to investors, the business press and analysts, once again without fear of increased liability.

• Third, companies need to make good investor relations, and “good listening” a day to day corporate priority, and shareholders need to take advantage of these opportunities to present their views to business executives and directors.

• Fourth, shareholders need to think for themselves and reduce their reliance on proxy advisory services and be more transparent in their proxy voting decision-making processes.

• Fifth, companies, boards and their advisors need to figure out a way for directors to spend more time addressing strategy and risk and less time on compliance.

• Finally, while efforts to better educate directors about corporate governance and their fiduciary responsibilities has been salutary, we now need to shift our efforts to better educating directors in understanding the businesses, including the risks, of their companies.

Hey, that sounds like what I wrote:

I thus foresee over the next few years growth in mid-size and large private corporations where the investors have extensive access to the records in real-time; perhaps not the same level as in a small private company, but far more than investors and public companies now have. We've already started to see that trend with the recent explosion of private equity groups like Blackstone

But I don't think any of them will change the fundamental problem of the public corporation, in which the investor experiences a 'distance' from the nuts and bolts of the operation that is hard to accept in the rapid pace of the 21st century. Hence I still believe there will be a continuing move to private equity, which a corresponding rise in intra-company commercial litigation and arbitration there, as I wrote before.

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Fortune Legal Pad on the French eBay injunction:

On June 30, the Commercial Court of Paris granted a sweeping injunction sought by LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton (LVMUY) that would not only require eBay to block all sales of counterfeit Louis Vuitton Malletier and Christian Dior Couture products on its site — a feat eBay has claimed is not technologically feasible — but  also to block all sales of genuine LVMH perfumes being sold there by unauthorized distributors.

The latter prohibition would effectively force eBay to block all sales of the specified perfumes — Christian Dior, Guerlain, Givenchy, and Kenzo — since no licensed LVMH distributor is authorized to sell over eBay. The practice of selling genuine products through unauthorized channels — sometimes called gray marketeering — is generally lawful in the United States because it is thought to benefit the consumer.

The commercial court also ordered eBay to pay various LVMH units $60.8 million in damages for past counterfeit or unauthorized sales. The key issues presented by the decision (available here in French) are well summarized in this New York Times article. (eBay’s official statement about the ruling is here; LVMH’s is here.)

The day the commercial court ruled, eBay asked the French Court of Appeals to stay the injunctive portion of it while it appealed the rest of the lower court’s ruling. Without the stay, the injunction — enforceable by daily fines of 50,000 euros (about $80,000) — takes effect as soon as copies of the decision have been formally delivered to eBay’s headquarters in San Jose, California, and its international subsidiary in Berne, Switzerland. (It’s unclear if that has happened yet.) LVMH has agreed to postpone enforcement, however, until the Court of Appeals rules on the stay application, according to an eBay spokesperson. That court told the lawyers today that it would rule Friday.

It's quite a fascinating case, particularly as it touches upon appealability in the European system, the distinction of internet service providers being merely a "host" versus a "broker," and Louis Vuittion's (I think outrageous) attempts to halt re-sale of their products.

My focus, however, is on how powerful the remedy here is -- the fine is huge and the equitable remedy requires eBay do something they claim they can't.

In normal commercial litigation, it is very rare for a court to order a losing defendant change their practices in a way that could potentially destroy the business. Normally, the defendant pays compensation for what they have done wrong and goes about their business again; indeed, in Pennsylvania and the general rule is that punitive damages are not available in breach of contract cases.

Such restraint vanishes in the realms of copyright and patent (particularly patent), where the very idea appears to be strong deterrence against either the defendant or anyone else behaving like that ever again.

The end result is, liking securities litigation, few copyright or patent claims actually reach a resolution on the merits, because the stakes are simply too high, and lawyers tend to believe that such cases are so complicated that there's a high likelihood jurors, judges or arbitrators will become confused even in a slam-dunk case, resulting in uncertainty about the outcome. (See this legal malpractice case arising from a large, complex commercial dispute where "The company claims Linklaters advised it that its case had a 70 percent chance of success if it were to go to arbitration, but at a later date reduced that to 50 percent. It says that, based on Linklaters' advice, it turned down three settlement offers.")

The initial application of bad for business lawyers is obvious, and, indeed, in most business lawyers will recommend their client cease and desist the moment there's any copyright or patent claim that isn't clearly frivolous.

But I think there is another lesson learned here. Big cases settle. Notice how eBay and LVMH are still trying to figure it out.

Except sometimes they don't. How about: big cases should settle; where the law forces the case to be big, it usually settles.

So how can we, as litigators and trial lawyers, make clear to the other side that our case is really big? I'll address that more in latter posts.

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The Unincorporated Business Law Prof Blog says:

Prof. Larry Ribstein has posted Reforming Limited Liability Company Fiduciary Litigation on SSRN.  He presented this paper at last week's LLCs at 20 symposium at Suffolk.  Here's the abstract:

Derivative suits are designed for publicly held corporations. In limited liability companies, the remedy creates significant costs and complications. These costs are unnecessary because more appropriate remedies member-authorized and direct suits are available. The application of the derivative remedy to LLCs is an example of lawmakers applying rules across business entities without adequately thinking through which rules belong in a coherent business association statute.

I'm not sure that I agree.  If nothing else, minority-member lawsuits are likely to get labeled at "entity" lawsuits, rather than direct, individual lawsuits.

(Note: Pennsylvania law (15 Pa.C.S. § 8992) permits derivative actions in limited liability companies.)

There are plenty of issues in an LLC that cannot be addressed appropriately by direct action. More importantly, retaining derivative actions answers two questions that have frustrated and confused a number of lawyers and judges: do individual members of an LLC have standing to sue when the majority of LLC members engage in tortious or intentional conduct, and, if so, what remedies are available?

Answering that question by reference only to contract law is usually impossible, because the vast majority of the LLC operating agreement have no provision for what should happen in the event of a breach, they just generally affirm the principle of majority rule. Viewed literally, most LLC operating agreements permit, by silence, the majority members to frustrate the reasonable expectations of the minority members and freeze them out of the business.

Courts are supposed to avoid absurd and unjust results, and most will not allow an operating agreement to cheat a minority member merely because of the absence of a "don't cheat" provision.

How do courts do then? There are a variety of options, including the common law proposition that "bad faith conduct" constitutes a breach of contract, regardless of whether the conduct specifically breaches the text of the agreement. But each one of those options relies heavily on discretion, resulting in inconsistent outcomes across similar cases before different judges.

I think the bigger question is: what's the harm of allowing a derivative action? A lawsuit is a lawsuit, and I fail to see how a derivative lawsuit in an LLC will result in any more discovery, costs, or anything else. In the context of an LLC, it's largely a different style of pleading.

Indeed, even if there is a harm, the American Law Institute’s Principles of Corporate Governance (2-7 § 7.01) says, in the case of a closely held corporation, the court in its discretion may treat an action raising derivative claims as a direct action, exempt it from those restrictions and defenses applicable only to derivative actions, and order an individual recovery, if it finds that to do so will not (i) unfairly expose the corporation or the defendants to a multiplicity of actions, (ii) materially prejudice the interests of creditors of the corporation, or (iii) interfere with a fair distribution of the recovery among all interested persons.

That, in essence, can make all derivative actions direct if the court is so inclined, creating an escape hatch for situations in which derivative actions are inappropriate. No corollary exception exists to permit derivative recovery where direct is inappropriate; that's why it needs to be there by statute.

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Martin Lipton, who knows a thing or two about corporations, presents:

On June 25, I presented a paper entitled “Shareholder Activism and the “Eclipse of the Public Corporation”: Is the Current Wave of Activism Causing Another Tectonic Shift in the American Corporate World?” at the 2008 Directors Forum of The University of Minnesota Law School. The paper discusses the pressures that have been pervasively eroding the centrality of the board of directors and transforming its role in the governance structure of public companies, with the end game being a new conception of the corporate organization. Against the backdrop of the subprime and leveraged loan financial crisis and other recent events, the paper addresses what I regard as the crux of the issue affecting public companies today: whether the institution of the corporate board can cope with these pressures and survive as the vital governing organ of public companies. Or, will a forced migration from director-centric governance to shareholder-centric governance, along with a concomitant transformation of the role of the board from guiding and advising management to ensuring compliance and performing due diligence, simply overwhelm American business corporations?

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Kudos to David Boies:

Fresh off his depiction in “Recount” — the HBO movie about the 2000 election fiasco — David Boies, along with partner Don Flexner, have, on behalf of American Express, negotiated one of the largest antitrust settlements ever for an individual company: $1.8 billion. The settlement with Mastercard comes on the heels of a similar $2.25 billion settlement, also handled by Boies, between AmEx and Visa.

The background: The Supreme Court ruled in 2004 that Visa and MasterCard violated antitrust laws by prohibiting their member banks from offering credit cards that could be used on rival payment networks. AmEx and Discover sued. Here are reports from the WSJ and NYT.

Really, though, kudos to Mr. Feinberg:

Kenneth R. Feinberg, who handled the earlier settlement with Visa and who also oversaw administration of the 9/11 compensation fund, acted as arbitrator in the case during secret negotiations that lasted eight weeks.

And while we're at it, don't forget to review the AAA rules for large, complex commercial disputes. There are two myths about commercial arbitration worth dispelling while on the subject.

First, you are generally not entitled to three arbitrators; you can ask for them, but the only time you'll get them is if you and the other party cannot agree on arbitrators and the case is worth more than $1 million.

Second, there is no rule prohibiting discovery in commercial arbitration, there just isn't any entitlement to it. I frequently recommend following the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure with regard to written discovery, except for depositions, which are limited usually to just the principle witnesses.

Of course, the best part of arbitration from the plaintiff's perspective is the finality, where the pressure of an unappealable award strongly encourages settlement. When you litigate a case through the civil system, there is virtually no chance of settlement prior to scheduling of trial, and, indeed, a good number of cases have to get through verdict and at least some of the appeal before the offers become reasonable. That takes years.

As you can see from the AmEx arbitration, nearly $2 billion dollars changing hands took eight weeks.

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