Deregulating Arbitration

In the aftermath of the November 2016 election, commentators predicted that regulation of arbitration by federal administrative agencies would halt in its tracks. But something more interesting happened. Instead of stopping agency arbitration regulation, Trump’s election and Republicans’ defense of their House and Senate majorities balkanized it. The new administration has rolled back some Obama-era rules, but other efforts to undo agency arbitration regulations have faltered at the administrative level or in the courts.

This Article—based on remarks delivered at the Loyola Consumer Law Review 2017 symposium—maps the terrain of agency arbitration regulation under Trump and discusses why some efforts to roll back Obama-era regulations have succeeded while others have failed.