Supreme Court Docket Report - March 23, 2015

Today, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in one case of interest to the business community:

Federal Arbitration Act—Preemption of State Law

Prior to the Supreme Court's decision in AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion, 131 S. Ct. 1740 (2011), the California Supreme Court (and a number of other state courts) had declared that waivers of class-wide arbitration were unenforceable as a matter of state law. But in Concepcion, the Supreme Court held that the Federal Arbitration Act ("FAA") preempts state-law rules requiring the availability of class-wide arbitration. Today, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in DIRECTV, Inc. v. Imburgia, No. 14-462, to decide whether an arbitration provision that specifies that it is inapplicable if its ban on class-wide procedures is unenforceable under "the law of [the customer's] state" is governed by state law without reference to FAA preemption, or by state law taking into account the preemptive effect of the FAA.