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Hello and welcome to Decoder.

I'm Nealai Patel, editor-in-chief of The Verge,

and Decoder is my show about big ideas and other problems. Today I'm talking with Brendan Ballou, founder of the Public Integrity Project, and author of the new book, when companies run the courts, which is all about the rise of forced arbitration agreements. Brennan's actually been on the show before. His previous book, Plunder, was all about the rise of private equity in America. And that conversation was among our most popular episodes.

Forced arbitration is similarly everywhere in our modern lives.

Deep in almost every single terms of service for almost any product you buy or service you use,

there's a clause that says by buying or using the thing, you're giving up your rights to join a class action lawsuit

if something goes wrong. Instead, you have to take the company to arbitration, which the company

usually pays for. You can see how there's a conflict there. There have been some really high-profile

cases these past few years, highlighting how deeply unfair arbitration clauses can be to consumers.

One you'll hear Brendan and I talk about, which we

also covered here on the verge, was the very sad example of a man whose wife died of an allergic

reaction after eating at a Disney World restaurant. When the man sued, Disney tried to force him into

arbitration instead, arguing that because he had signed up for Disney Plus streaming service, he had waived his

right to sue. There was massive public pushback to this, and Disney eventually relented,

...