On Remand, District Court Breaks New Ground by Vacating Arbitrator’s Class Certification Award
In what appears to be a first-of-its-kind ruling, the District Court for the Southern District of New York recently concluded that a federal district court has the authority to vacate an arbitrator’s class certification award based on the due process rights of absent class members, according to a post on the website of K&L Gates.
The ruling involves the long-running Jock v. Sterling Jewelers, Inc., in which the district court and the Second Circuit Court of Appeals have rendered multiple decisions addressing the proper role of a court in reviewing an arbitrator’s authority to determine whether parties have agreed to class arbitration.
The K&L Gates authors explain that the Jock court determined that, absent an express class arbitration provision in each putative class member’s arbitration agreement, an arbitrator does not have the authority to bind absent class members to a class judgment—even if they signed the same form of arbitration agreement as the named plaintiffs.
