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Minnesota Attorney General Sues National Arbitration Forum
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 16:50:29 -0400
Begin forwarded message: From: "Paul Levy" <plevy () citizen org> Date: July 14, 2009 3:06:25 PM EDT To: <dave () farber net> Subject: Minnesota Attorney General Sues National Arbitration Forum According to this report on the Consumer Law and Policy Blog from one of my colleagues, the attorney general of Minnesota has brought sued against the National Arbitration Forum alleging that it has secret financial ties to one of the country's largest debt collectors, at the same time that it is a major player in debt collection arbitrations -- according to the complaint, NAF is "the country’s largest debt collection arbitration company." Complaint paragraph 3. At the same time, the NAF fosters the placement of arbitration clauses in the agreements that will be at issue in arbitrations before it, telling creditor interests how it will benefit them and mess over their customers (Complaint paragraph 4): "In soliciting creditors to use its arbitration services, the Forum makes representations that align itself against consumers, including, for example, that “[t]he customer does not know what to expect from Arbitration and is more willing to pay,” that consumers “ask you to explain what arbitration is then basically hand you the money,” and that “[y]ou [the creditor] have all the leverage [in arbitration] and the customer really has no choice but to take care of the account.” The National Arbitration Forum is also one of the biggest players in the Uniform Dispute Resolution Process ("UDRP") that ICANN requires be written into all domain name registration agreements, and fair use advocates have long felt that the NAF is the best place for complainants to go to ensure appointment of panels that are biased in favor of the complainant. I wonder whether ICANN will yank the NAF's accreditation as a UDRP provider until it ensures that no similar corruption infects NAF's UDRP functions. http://pubcit.typepad.com/clpblog/2009/07/minnesota-attorney-general-sues-national-arbitration-forum.html Paul Alan Levy Public Citizen Litigation Group 1600 - 20th Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20009 (202) 588-1000 http://www.citizen.org/litigation ------------------------------------------- Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/ Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
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- Minnesota Attorney General Sues National Arbitration Forum David Farber (Jul 14)