The California Supreme Court has narrowed the protection of arbitration agreements with class action waivers with its holding in McGill v. Citibank that arbitration agreements may not preclude public injunctive relief .

In McGill, Citibank was sued by a credit card holder who claimed that its credit insurance program violated the California UCL, CLRA, false advertising law, and insurance code. Among other things, the consumer sought an injunction prohibiting Citibank from continuing the challenged practices. The trial court granted in part the bank’s motion to compel arbitration based on the arbitration clause in the credit card agreement. It denied the motion as it related to the request for injunctive relief by applying the pre-Concepción California Broughton-Cruz rule which holds unenforceable agreements to arbitrate claims for public injunctive relief under the CLRA, UCL, or false advertising law.

California continued its ongoing debate on arbitrations and class actions this week when its Supreme Court held that in some cases an arbitrator, not the court, must decide whether an arbitration agreement permits class-wide arbitration. This case is important because it rejects a universal rule on who should be the decision-maker in favor of a case-by-case analysis. In Sandquist v. Lebo Automotive, Inc., No. S220812 (Cal. July 28, 2016), the California Supreme Court did not…

UNITED STATES – In Campbell-Ewald Co. v. Gomez, the Supreme Court refused to allow class-action defendants to escape liability through an unaccepted offer of full payment of the named plaintiff’s claims. This resolved a deep circuit split on the issue. The Court concluded that “basic principles of contract law” established that once the offer was rejected, the offer could not moot the claim. Interestingly, the Court expressly refused to decide whether a defendant could escape…

UNITED STATES – The Supreme Court has once again spoken decisively in favor of class action waivers in arbitration agreements. In DirecTV, Inc. v. Imburgia, the Court explained in no uncertain terms that “[t]he Federal Arbitration Act is a law of the United States, and Concepcion is an authoritative interpretation of that Act. Consequently, the judges of every State must follow it.” The Court thus reversed a decision of the California Court of Appeal that…

In the United States, deceptive pricing class actions are currently en vogue. Generally, plaintiffs in these cases claim that they were deceived into purchasing a product by a misleading comparison price that signals a misleading value. These prices are often labelled “compare at,” “manufacturer’s suggested retail price,” or something similar. The most common targets of these lawsuits have been outlet stores, but the trend could expand to any retailer (or manufacturer) who communicates a price…

UNITED STATES – Cybersecurity is now headline news across the globe, with data breaches hitting nearly every industry—from retail, to healthcare, to banking. Amid growing concerns about U.S. interests, President Obama has waded into the cybersecurity waters with a recent Executive Order. This Order moves the needle in the right direction, but does it do anything to ease the rising tide of class action litigation? The short answer is “no.” The President’s Order and accompanying…