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Comment by gee_totes | Hacker News Reader

2 Interesting things:

From the arbitration agreement:

Services performed by Judge.me are governed by the laws of the State of Hong Kong. Purchasing the services of Judge.me or any reliance on any condition, representation, warranty or implied warranty (none of which are stated and all being expressly disclaimed) signifies an agreement to submit to the personal and subject matter jurisdiction of the courts situated in Hong Kong. Participants waive any and all rights to challenge venue or to remove the action to any other court.

Hong Kong?

Also, what happens if judge.me goes out of business? How will parties who enter into a contract with the judge.me arbitration clause resolve conflicts?

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Hong Kong is where my main arbitration partner lives.

The seat of arbitration only matters if you want to challenge the judge.me award.

I would strongly suggest to change the seat of arbitration to either New York or London if you want to convince companies to trust this service. Both places are preferred by companies worldwide to settle international disputes.

Very interesting to hear that about New York. Are international disputes an exception to the general preference for Delaware?

The seat of arbitration and the choice of law are two different things. Parties prefer London or New York for all challenges related to the arbitration process (stay the hearing, challenge the award, etc) but this does not exclude the actual arbitration from applying Delaware law.

By selecting a different arbitrator. Look up sample arbitration clauses; most do not specify specific arbitrators.

Because the ones that don't specify something else, like an accrediting agency.

Anyways: net-net: if "judge.me" goes away, then disputants will either agree on some other arbitrator (like AAA) or end up in court.

Is there such a thing as a State of Hong Kong?

Technically, it's a Special Administrative Region of the PRC, and not a sovereign state, but I don't know if can be legally referred to as a "State".

Does it matter? Hong Kong has a judicial system with a long track record.

It’s confusing to have legal agreements that refer to non-existent entities. What would you think of a contract governed by the laws of the Kingdom of California?

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