Alternative Dispute Resolution
Jun. 15, 2002
Arbitration Reform Measure is Amended
SACRAMENTO - One of the key measures in a package of bills that would impose reforms on alternative dispute resolution has been amended to exempt individual arbitrators and self-regulating groups such as stock exchanges.
The bill was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee late Tuesday and is on its way to the full Senate for a floor vote.
"The California Dispute Resolution Council was concerned that if they included individual arbitrators in the definition of arbitrator providers, all the individual arbitrators would cease doing arbitrations because there's so much regulation that would be required," Donne Brownsey, a lobbyist for the group, said Wednesday.
By excluding individual arbitrators from the definition in AB3029, author Assemblyman Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, also excludes them from five other bills in the reform package including one requiring data collection.
Steinberg's bill would allow consumers to choose a different arbitration provider than the one named in a contract. It also would prohibit ADR providers from soliciting consumer arbitration cases and from promising results or favoritism toward one industry.
The bill would prohibit ADR firms from violating their own policies in consumer arbitration or paying for referrals of consumer cases.
Self-regulating groups such as the New York Stock Exchange that are overseen by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission also would be exempt from the reforms under amendments to the bill.
Linda Rapattoni
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