Supreme Court agreed to hear the Major’s appeal on Friday crypto transactions coinbasewho is trying to get two customer cases Against the company resolved by private arbitration, not by federal court.
“we are blessed Supreme court has agreed to hear our appeal, and we look forward to resolving this matter,” a coinbase the spokesperson said.
The issue the high court will take up in the Coinbase case relates to the highly technical question of whether a party to a lawsuit can be compelled to defend the case in proceedings in federal district court, even if it Asks to send to an appeals court. dispute to an arbitrator.
But this case may be the first case taken up by the Supreme Court involving a cryptocurrency company.
“Certainly, it’s the first one I’ve known,” said Glenn Chappell, an attorney. Abraham Bilsky, One of the Coinbase customers who is suing the company.
“It very well could be a first,” he said.
People look on as the logo of Coinbase Global Inc, the largest US cryptocurrency exchange, on the Nasdaq MarketSite jumbotron in Times Square in New York on April 14, 2021.
Shannon Stapleton | reuters
He and Bielski’s other lawyers opposed Coinbase’s request to take the case to the Supreme Court.
Chappell said, “We do not think that companies like Coinbase should have the right to an automatic stay of litigation, since the district court has already declared their arbitration unlawful.”
But, he added, “we certainly still welcome the ability to advocate on behalf of consumers in the matter.”
Bielski sued Coinbase after someone associated with Coinbase was scammed of over $31,000 from his account with the company. Their upcoming class action lawsuit alleges that the Electronic Funds Transfer Act requires Coinbase to credit customer accounts for stolen cryptocurrency.
Coinbase sought to compel arbitration. But a California federal district court judge ruled that Bielski’s arbitration agreement with the company was not valid under that state’s law, allowing his case to proceed in district court.
In other lawsuits taken up by the high court on Friday, Coinbase customers sued the company in a California district court, claiming that Coinbase’s promotion of a Dogecoin sweepstakes in June 2021 violates state law.
As in Bielski’s case, a district judge denied Coinbase’s request to send the sweepstakes-related case to arbitration.
In both cases, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit denied Coinbase’s request to halt the lawsuits at the district court level as the companies appealed to overturn rulings denying arbitration.
Neel Katyal, the lawyer representing Coinbase in the Supreme Court his petition Asking the judges to hear the company’s appeal said there is a deep division among the lower federal appeals courts on the question of what the court will decide.
Six federal appeals circuits have held that appeals from denials of motions to compel arbitration “automatically” proceed to a district court, Katyal wrote.
But, “the three circuits … are opposites,” he said. “The circuit will remain divided until this Court intervenes.”
“Coinbase must now devote significant time, energy and resources to the burdensome class actions in two district courts, even though the Ninth Circuit is likely to conclude that no cases begin in federal court,” Katyal wrote. “