Wells Fargo Killing Sham Account Suits by Using Arbitration
While Wells Fargo’s new chief executive has responded to his company’s recent unauthorized-accounts scandal by saying his “immediate and highest priority is to restore trust in Wells Fargo,” the bank has been taking a different approach with individual customers, reports The New York Times.
“The bank has sought to kill lawsuits that its customers have filed over the creation of as many as two million sham accounts by moving the cases into private arbitration — a secretive legal process that often favors corporations,” write reporters Michael Corkery and Stacy Cowley.
Customers argue that they couldn’t have agreed to arbitration, considering they didn’t sign up for the accounts in the first place. The bank counters that the agreements in the customers’ original contracts also cover the disputed accounts.
