On April 24, 2019, the Supreme Court issued its opinion in Lamps Plus, Inc., et al. v. Varela, addressing the question of whether an ambiguous arbitration agreement can be read to compel class arbitration under the Federal Arbitration Act, 9 U.S.C. §§ 1-16 (2000). Underscoring the controversial nature of this decision, the case was decided by a 5-4 split that included dissenting opinions authored by Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan. The majority opinion, authored by Chief Justice Roberts, held that contract ambiguity did not suffice to compel class arbitration.
Continue Reading U.S. Supreme Court Affirms the Necessity of Express Authorization for Class Arbitration
Contracts
GDPR Contracts and Liabilities Between Controllers and Processors
By Joshua Gray on
On 13 September, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) published draft guidance on GDPR contracts and liabilities on contracts between controllers and processors under the GDPR (the “Guidance”). The ICO is consulting on the Guidance until 10 October. We summarize the key aspects of the Guidance below.
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Mass. Data Security Regulation Governing Service Provider Contracts Takes Effect Soon
By Inside Privacy on
As of March 1, 2012, all companies storing the personal information of Massachusetts residents with a third-party service provider must contractually require the service provider to maintain data security measures “consistent” with the Massachusetts data security regulations. (You can read our overview of these regulations here.)
Among other things…
Federal Court Holds Terms of Service Disclosed via Link to ISP’s Home Page Not Reasonably Conspicuous
By Inside Privacy on
Posted in Litigation
Denying the motion of the defendant internet service provider, Clearwire, to compel arbitration, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington held last week that Clearwire’s e-mail confirmation to the plaintiffs was inadequate notice of the terms of service. This e-mail confirmation included, on the third page of the e-mail, a link to…
Cloud Outages Highlight Contractual Risk
By Inside Privacy on
Posted in Cloud Computing
By Christine Enemark
To some customers of computing storage, processing and online services, the “cloud” seems no different from the traditional information technology services they have used for years. Amazon’s cloud computing outage last week, and the associated downtime and data loss suffered by a number of Internet web sites…