Steam doesn’t want to pay arbitration fees, tells gamers to sue instead
Valve previously sued a law firm in attempt to stop mass arbitration claims.
Common Valve W
its not exactly for the positive reason you think. theyre trying to prevent the class action lawsuit going around the (UK?) right now and realized when a certain amount of people take the arbitration, it gets fairly costly, so they reverted on that clause.
regardless fuck arbitration, its like paying off judges but even more transparent about it.
its basically doing the right thing for the wrong reason (reverting arbitration cause not for thr consumer, but for their wallets)
Big win for consumers, at least in the US. People tend to do better in courts here than they do in arbitration (where one side pays the judge(arbitrator)).
"Specifically, the named Plaintiffs won binding decisions from arbitrators rendering Valve's arbitration provision unenforceable for both lack of notice and because it impermissibly seeks to bar public injunctive relief."
So none of these stupid clauses are valid? FOO FYEAH!
Anyone can ELI5 this thing? I'm pretty lost
Twofold: One, they lost a case in arbitration that basically said arbitration isn't usable.
Two: Lot of companies do arbitration to avoid court, which works fine and is cheaper if you're not getting taken to court much. If 75,000 people that could do a class action suit all go to arbitration though, the benefit is lost. Lawyers threatened that. 3 grand a arbitration case x 75,000 people == 225 million dollars on fees alone.
