• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.47-69
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• 2012

This paper investigates the U.S. courts'attitudes toward the legal doctrine of adhesion contracts, which have been employed as contract defenses by individual consumers who have entered into consumer arbitration agreements with businesses. Some requirements have been added to the sole adhesiveness of the arbitration clause that can invalidate the arbitration clause, including unconscionability and unreasonable harshness. It seems that the U.S. courts have moved toward a more tightened stance in evaluating the validity of consumer arbitration clauses, favoring consumer arbitration.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.67-89
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• 2018

An arbitration has great strength in the sense that it is a more rapid dispute resolution than a trial, and is means of dispute settlement for an achievement of the purpose which is the improvement of the rights and interests of consumers. Because the remedy of consumers' damage currently has not worked well, discussions about consumer arbitration as a universal Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) is needed. The core of the ADR is not only the professionality and neutrality of an arbitrator and a mediator, but also the non-impairment of the arbitration proceeding's fairness. In addition, it also has both economic feasibility and efficiency. Furthermore, providing an institutional strategy is necessary to ensure fairness in an arbitration award.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.151-171
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• 2010

This paper investigates the consumer arbitration practices In the U.S. The key issue in consumer arbitration is how to protect the individual consumers from the loss of their legal rights stemming from the arbitration agreement with the business. In the U.S., the major legal doctrines to protect individual consumer include the voluntary-knowing-intelligent doctrine, unconscionability doctrine, and void contract. Even though the US courts are favorable to the enforceability of arbitration agreement, they strictly apply the contract law theories in deciding the existence of arbitration agreement, providing a strong common law protection for the consumers in arbitration. However, the practices for protection of consumers in arbitration in Korea are not mature yet. If consumer arbitration is widely adopted into B to C contracts, a protective measure for individual consumer can be found in the Act of Clause Regulation providing that the business has duty to explain the relevant clause in the adhesive contracts.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.111-132
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• 2014

Recently, there have been discussions about the necessity of consumer arbitration such as ADR. The debate has progressed, because this area of arbitration has expanded into the press and medical fields. However, there is not an act for regulating consumer arbitration in South Korea. Thus, this issue has been deliberated at UNCITRAL Working Group III. The core issue of this deliberation is the validity of consumer arbitration. Especially if a pre-dispute arbitration agreement is contracted online, it progresses by using standardized terms; therefore it is possible that the Standardized Terms Regulating Act judges the relevant terms. This thesis consists of the following: First, concepts and categories of arbitration agreements. These include arbitration agreement, pre-dispute arbitration agreement, and arbitration agreement through standardized terms. Second, the validity of the above agreements will be discussed. There are three positions concerning their validity: affirmative as de lege ferenda, negative, and restrictively negative. Similar discussions concerning German law and cases would be helpful to specify and compare the issue. When a consumer arbitration agreement is contracted through standardized terms, it is necessary that the required formality of the agreement has been satisfied, before the effect of the agreement may be regulated by the German Civil Code.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.165-187
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• 2011

This paper investigates on the legal doctrine of "voluntary, knowing, and intelligent" (VKI Doctrine). The main points that were discussed include the history of the VKI doctrine and the US courts' attitudes toward the doctrine. It was also discussed how the VKI doctrine influenced the protection of consumer who agreed to arbitrate with businesses. The US courts' attitudes have shown to be split in application of the VKI doctrine to disputes in the enforceability of arbitration agreement between the consumers and the businesses. In order for the arbitration agreement to be invalidated, the state legislature cannot enact law that are directly targeted toward the validity of arbitration agreement. Rather the contract law in each of the state should be applied to the evaluation of the validity of an arbitration agreement. As the more and more consumers become familiar with the arbitration, the need for the VKI doctrine to protect the individual consumers in arbitration is expected to be diminished in future disputes.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.99-119
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• 2009

In modern capitalistic society, the harmed consumers like consumer complaints etc. are increasing day by day being caused by mass production and mass consumption etc. These consumer damages can come out as many types, but can be the most typical form. If there is a majority of the small sum damage, being saved by legal procedures is a fact that many consumers renounce it for long time, lots of expense and the complexity of the process etc. So, the government enforces consumer groups suit and collective dispute mediation system revising Framework Act on consumer. Specially, collective dispute mediation system, one of the ADR, saves the harmed consumers and accomodates efficiency in management of consumer dispute settlement commission by dealing with it collectively if the same or similar damage without a legal procedure happens to a great number of consumers. However, collective consumer dispute mediation system also has a number of problems. Therefore, this thesis is looking into the function and procedure of the collective consumer dispute mediation system on Framework Act on consumer as well as its problems and ways of improving it.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.73-86
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• 2011

Today's arbitrations see themselves as the most effective scheme for dispute resolution in a variety of transactional context. While some kind of ADR system was already introduced in Korea as of 2007 with revision of the Consumer Basic Law, consumers' needs in dispute resolution remain unmet. Recently one consumer arbitration case divides the U.S. Supreme Court. Of course, the result of the case is expected to affect tens of millions of arbitration agreements in the States which has the most developed scheme in consumer arbitrations. While Arbitration clauses in adhesion contracts are not automatically held to be substantively unconscionable, Class action waivers are one of the most controversial issues in consumer arbitration. In this study, with the theoretical background of consumer arbitrations general, and contractual defenses against adhesive contracts, reviewed are U.S. federal courts' attitudes toward certain consumer arbitration agreements including the class arbitration waiver. Moreover, several issues in AT&T case are examined for practical implications for consumer dispute resolution. All of these are expected to initiate further research to find some guidelines for the proper status and operation of consumer arbitration here in Korea.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.69-87
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• 2023

This study recognizes that consumers are becoming important as a subject of commerce as they change from the existing e-commerce market to the consumer-led e-commerce market, and proposes the use of consumer intervention as a remedy for consumer damage in international e-commerce disputes. In Korea, there is no separate regulation on consumer arbitration, so we will analyze the U.S. arbitration judgment, which is the most active in consumer arbitration, and examine it through the U.S. arbitration judgment so that arbitration can become active as a remedy for consumer disputes in Korea. In summary, in the event of a dispute between consumers and companies through e-commerce, consumers' preference for arbitration was confirmed through repeated collection of opinions without coercion. It is necessary to revitalize arbitration in Korea to protect consumers through arbitration rather than litigation and to resolve disputes through active alternative dispute resolution as a solution to disputes in e-commerce, which is rapidly increasing through U.S. consumer arbitration cases. The topic of the activation of arbitration has been mentioned a lot before, but the preference for arbitration is still lower than that of litigation. However, from now on, as the appearance of existing commerce has changed to consumer-led e-commerce, it has proposed a plan to use arbitration to rescue consumers from damage as consumers as buyers grow in the market.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.91-110
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• 2018

Consumers repeatedly make small sum purchases through business-to-consumer contracts, usually without incident. Consumer areas have been increasing; therefore, consumer disputes have been occurring frequently as well. In international consumer transactions, it is not easy to solve consumer disputes by applying the laws of different countries. Resolving disputes by using the consumer arbitration system can be a measure to protect consumers. In the U.S., a class arbitration is being operated as a mixed dispute resolution system of class action and arbitration. Consumer Arbitration has long been a controversial issue in the U.S. It is therefore a lesson for us to examine related cases. A recent U.S. Supreme Court decision, DIRECTV v. Imburgia, was looked into and after a summary of the facts, issues, and opinions and opposing opinions that had a tight controversy, a close analysis was done. The analysis through this judgment is as follows: first, the contraction of consumer protection; second, the expansion of the Federal Arbitration Act scope; third, the class arbitration's restriction; and fourth, the submission of the arbitration fairness act.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.199-217
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• 2009

During the urbanization progresses, apartments such as the house of commons, representing our homes are situated in space. However, many consumer problems of our country's apartment house are caused by the government's failure of housing policy and consumer dispute resolution system In this study, apartment house and alleviate consumer disputes relating to in proactive ways to improve the government's housing policy was presented. At the same time, since the revision of Consumer Fundamental Act on collective alternative dispute resolution system has proposed scheme, this occurred after a dispute to resolve the dispute can be more efficient ways.