• 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.

• THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE & LAW REVIEW
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• v.77
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• pp.43-67
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• 2018

Arbitration is one of alternative dispute resolution systems which settle a dispute by arbitrators(private persons) based on a contract between contracting parties without a judicial litigation system involved. As a valid arbitration agreement is an essential requirement for commencement of arbitration, the first thing to be determined is whether there is a valid arbitration agreement or not when a dispute is submitted. A consumer arbitration agreement usually exists as an arbitration clause in an adhesive contract between consumers and a seller. When consumers buy a product from a seller, they are requested to agree on a general terms and conditions which are unilaterally drafted by a seller in advance. These terms and conditions are not negotiable because it is an adhesive contract and consumers are placed in "take-it-or-leave-it" position. Therefore, even though there is an arbitration agreement between consumers and a seller, it has to be carefully considered whether it has a legal effect or not. In this respect, a court will examine if an arbitration agreement has procedural unconscionability and substantive unconscionability. Therefore, as U.S is a well-advanced and arbitration-friendly country, this paper analyzes four U.S cases to find out (i) what a court considers, (ii) how a court examines and interprets procedural and substantive unconscionability and (iii) if there has been a change in regard to a court's decision. By doing so, it will provide some suggestions and guidelines for a consumer arbitration in Korea.

• Design & Manufacturing
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.36-40
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• 2016

Connectors transmit electric signals to different parts in compact mobile display products. As products that apply this have become lightweight and smaller in size, there are growing demands for smaller and more integrated connectors, which are internal parts of the products. As a measure to address these demands, there is the planar array connector that minimizes the part by arranging the single-direction BTB connectors to two directions. As connectors become smaller in size and more highly integrated, maintaining intensity to prevent defects during impact and maintaining adhesive force to smoothly transmit electric signals are growing in importance. Thus, in order to identify the impact of concave shaping on improving adhesive power in connector terminal pins as a method to increase the connecting power of planar array connector terminal pins, this study predicted and examined the concave shaping method, number of concave shapes, and the adhesive power according to the size of the concave shape through CAE. For concave shaping, the model that added concave shaping towards the lower part of the connector terminal pin and added spokes for the area pressed down by the concave shaping was 0.74 N, showing increased adhesive force compared to existing models. Furthermore, when applying two concave shaping, rather than just one, there was a tendency for adhesive force to increase. In the case of adhesive power trends according to the size of the concave shaping, adhesive power increased and the width of the concave shape decreased, and the biggest adhesive force trends were shown when the concave shaping depth was 0.01mm.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.3-35
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• 2017

For recent years, several disputes between Korean consumers and multinational companies have arisen. Since the disputes were big and material that children's safety was at issue, a question started if Korean law properly has protected consumers' rights against multinational companies. While the Korean legal society tried to legislate punitive compensation with this concern, the U.S. Supreme Court reached an interesting case law regarding consumer contracts. A recent trend on consumer contracts in the United States shows that general terms have arbitration clause with class action waiver. As much as international arbitration has worked as the most effective resolution in international commercial disputes, the concept is still foreign and the experts are not approachable to lay individual consumers. However, class action in arbitration can hugely help for lay individual consumers to bring a case before arbitration tribunal. California courts consistently showed the analysis that the practical impact of prohibiting class action in arbitration clause is to ban lay individual consumers from fighting for their rights. However, the Supreme Court held that the arbitration clause shall be enforced as parties agree even if consumers practically cannot fight for their rights in the end. Even though consumer contracts are a typical example of lack of parity and of adhesive contract, the Supreme Court still applies liberalism that parties are equal in power and free to agree. This case law has a crucial implication since Korean consumers buy goods and services from the U.S. and other countries in everyday life. Accordingly, they are deemed to agree on the dispute resolution clauses, which might violate their constitutional right to bring their cases before the adjudication tribunal. This issue could be more important than adopting punitive compensation because consumers' rights are not necessarily governed by Korean law but by the governing law of the general terms and conditions chosen and written by the multinational companies. Thus this paper studies and analyzes the practical reality of international arbitration and influence of arbitration clause with class action waiver with the U.S. Supreme Court and California case laws.

• 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.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.