Despite the ubiquity of binding arbitration clauses in consumer contracts, I am unable to find a single example of an actual consumer arbitration proceeding (emails, exhibits, hearing, etc.). This is in contrast to litigation, where millions of dockets are available via PACER.
This is surprising as the American Arbitration Association consumer rules do not impose any sort of confidentiality restrictions on the consumer.
What explains the lack of public arbitration proceedings?
Not private in the sense of confidential, although many are confidential (if agreed by the parties) and the arbitrator is always under a duty of confidence. Rather, private in the sense that they are conducted by private people and organisations who have no obligation to publish or publicise the results.
Since most people pay on the decision, most arbitrations never go near a public court and therefore never get published.
As Dale M have said in previous answer, the people conducting arbitration does not have obligation to publish the result to public. Or even worse, arbitration clauses usually also contain non disclosure agreement which makes it illegal for anyone participating in the arbitration to talk about the arbitration result in the public, including when the result is unfair and unjust due to the fact that arbitrator are hired by the company and is afraid of losing their job if they make decision that does not favor the company. This shield the company from reputational damage that may arise from the victim publishing unfair arbitration result to internet, because they are not allowed to publish it in the first place due to non disclosure agreement.
As quoted from President Biden [1] :
Forced arbitration isn’t court. In fact, forced arbitration prevents survivors from going to court. And under forced arbitration, proceedings are conducted in secret, often by arbitrators selected and paid for by the employer.
And the outcomes of the arbitration are usually hidden from the public and the employees and coworkers, and they usually can’t even — and they can’t be appealed or can’t be overturned.
In some arbitration clauses, you can’t even acknowledge that you’re bringing the claim. And parenthetically, employees can still forbid — can still forbid — employers can still forbid people from talking about what happened to them through nondisclosure clauses. And I think that should be changed as well, but that’s another day.
