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Comment by HappySweeney | Hacker News Reader

I'm quite ignorant of American arbitration laws, but don't these boards issue default judgements if one side refuses to participate?

Also, does anyone have any realistic numbers on how much losing would cost Twitter?

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Arbitration is done by private companies. They don't work for free. Also, they are arguably employed by twitter. Default judgement against twitter would just lose them that client.

But does it matter, if this client is clearly not paying?

Arbitration isn't free. Someone has to pay for it. If the company won't pay for it, they aren't going to process a claim.

At this point it is kind of moot because if Twitter won't pay the fee, they obviously won't pay the judgement issued against them.

Then the executives and board members should face jail time and the company should be forced into bankruptcy.

Otherwise what prevents other companies from paying any of their obligations? This isn't the wild west, this needs to stop and right now.

Nothing honestly. You can take a number in the bankruptcy proceeding and find out with the rest of the claimants that there is not enough money to pay claims.

If there are no longer any repercussions then I would downgrade the Unites States as a place where one should invest. Theses kinds of shenanigans is what you have in developing nations and is the reason they face such high interest rates and reluctance from foreign investments.

Tesla, Apple, & Amazon and other huge companies are serial union busters. The NLRB gives them a stern finger shake each time. There are no consequences for treating your labor source poorly in the US

But doesn't that release the employee from the arbitration clause, so then then employee can sue Twitter in a real court?

Hopefully the courts in the future add some punitive punishment to twitter.

Previously Twitter went to court to dismiss a class action and force everybody to individually arbitrate and now that they had it dismissed they've decided to not arbitrate. Big waste of time and money that should be discouraged.

No, the employee signed an arbitration clause. They can't just pull a get out of jail free card.

The employer also signed an arbitration clause. They're the one breaking contract by refusing to pay for the arbitration they signed up to pay.

Sure, except the employer has legal counsel on retainer. You and I don't.

Mandating arbitration and then refusing to participate in order to relieve yourself of financial obligations is obviously not socially sustainable, even if it's just to generate settlement leverage.

This was featured in an issue of Harvard Negotiation Law Review a while back. It states that (paraphrasing) that "If a party is concerned that they will suffer due to arbitration, then it can fail to pay the arbitrator. Tben the arbitrartor will report to the judge that the arbitration failed, and the judge will declare a mustrial." Note that the judge is not privy to the arbitration. Arbitration is agreed to by the parties, and then the judge orders ths parties into arbitration. IANAL

The lawyers are fronting the fees if Twitter won't which indicates they feel it's a pretty solid case IMHO.

Presumably the arbitration judgement against them can be enforced in plain old ordinary court.

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