Federal Arbitration Act (FAA)
The 1925 statute making written arbitration agreements valid, irrevocable, and enforceable.
The FAA supplies the enforcement machinery — stays, orders compelling arbitration, confirmation and vacatur of awards — and the interpretive policy favouring arbitration that has driven six decades of expansive Supreme Court authority. Its central saving clause preserves generally applicable contract defences, which is the doorway through which every unconscionability challenge passes.
See also
- FAA PreemptionThe displacement of state law that obstructs enforcement of arbitration agreements.
- UnconscionabilityThe contract defence that voids terms that are both oppressively imposed and unreasonably one-sided.
- Motion to Compel ArbitrationThe application asking a court to enforce an arbitration agreement against a party proceeding in litigation.
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