What is mass arbitration?

Mass arbitration is a tactic in which lawyers file thousands of individual arbitration demands against the same company at once, using the company's own class-action waiver and arbitration clause against it, since each case can trigger separate filing fees the company must pay under most provider rules. It emerged as a countermeasure to class waivers, which route disputes out of court and into arbitration one claimant at a time.

This area of law is changing. The description below reflects the position as of 2026-08-22. Check the sources before relying on it.

The scale of mass arbitration filings pushed both major U.S. arbitration providers to adopt dedicated mass-arbitration rules — AAA and JAMS have each introduced batch procedures, reduced or restructured fees, and streamlined arbitrator appointment for cases involving large numbers of similar claims filed together. Companies have responded by rewriting arbitration clauses to add bellwether or staged-filing provisions limiting how many cases proceed at once. This is a developing area of contract and arbitration-provider rules, and provider procedures have changed multiple times in the past two years.

Last reviewed 2026-08-22.