House Judiciary Holds Hearing on Credit Card Industry's Use of Arbitration To Quash Consumer Claims

David Arkush, the director of Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division, is testifying this morning at a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law, on the need for arbitration fairness legislation. The focus of the hearing is how credit card companies use forced arbitration to avoid accountability for some of their worst practices. David will also explain how forced arbitration is tilted heavily toward businesses in the credit card collection industry, with a focus on the National Arbitration Forum (NAF), the collection industry’s go-to arbitration provider. A Public Citizen study found that in California arbitration cases heard by the NAF, the arbitrator ruled against the consumer 94 percent of the time. David’s testimony will counter the misleading arguments made by corporate lobbyists against giving consumers a choice to arbitrate. The other witnesses are Pennsylvania class action lawyer extraordinaire Mike Donovan, Prof. Rich Frankel (Drexel Law), and GOP witness Prof. Christopher Drahozal (Kansas Law). You can watch the hearing live at this link.