New AAJ Report: Forced Arbitration in a Pandemic – Corporations Double Down

Washington, DC — A new report, Forced Arbitration in a Pandemic: Corporations Double Down, released today by the American Association for Justice reveals that corporate America doubled down on their use of accountability-killing forced arbitration during the pandemic, closing 17% more cases in 2020 than 2019. While Americans faced grave economic and health circumstances, corporations continued to silence injured and defrauded consumers and workers by forcing them into these secretive, extrajudicial tribunals.  
Specifically this report found: The number of consumer and employment forced arbitrations that were closed during the pandemic increased, while win rates for those harmed decreased over the same period (forced arbitration providers only provide data on case closings, not filings). Just 577 Americans won a monetary award in forced arbitration in 2020, a win rate of 4.1%--below the five-year-average (2016-2020) win rate of 5.3% One in three employment forced arbitrations closed in 2020 was against Family Dollar or its corporate parent Dollar Tree. Family Dollar also was the number one abuser of forced arbitration in all categories. 
"Increasingly, this country is replacing our right to a trial by jury with a rigged, off-the-books system where there is no public accountability and where fewer people win their case than climb Mt. Everest," said AAJ President Navan Ward.
Click here to read the full Forced Arbitration in a Pandemic: Corporations Double Down report.  

CONTACT Carly Moore Sfregola Email: Carly.Sfregola@justice.org Phone: 202.684.9609