Joshua Mandell spoke to Law360 about the prevalence of arbitration among cannabis companies to resolve their disputes. According to Law360, both the Judicial Arbitration and Mediation Services (JAMS) and the American Arbitration Association (AAA) experienced a dramatic increase in cannabis disputes in 2019 over the previous year.
Mandell elaborated on the risk of a cannabis case being tossed out in federal court, and protecting client privacy, as reasons why cannabis businesses seek the assistance of JAMS or AAA.
“In certain circuits, if you're in federal court and you're trying to enforce a contract or enforce rights against another industry participant, the federal courts might have difficulty doing that.”
“Generally, businesses like to have privacy over their disputes. If they're forward-looking, if they're thinking this would be ugly, then an arbitration provision would be logical.”