Supreme Court takes Coinbase appeal over crypto lawsuits

Maybe this will be a wake-up call (probably not) to other companies that do cumbersome 'pre-conditions' to arbitration and/or try to roll-up things that have specifically been carved out from arbitration into the mix.

LTC Eugene Chu
..."The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in both cases denied Coinbase's request to put the lawsuits on hold at the district court level as the company pursued appeals seeking to overturn the rulings denying it arbitration.

Neal Katyal, an attorney representing Coinbase at the Supreme Court, in his petition asking the justices to hear the company's appeal said that there is a deep split among lower federal appeals courts on the question the court will decide.

Six federal appeals circuits have held that an appeal of a denial of a motion to compel arbitration "automatically" stays proceeding in a district court, Katyal wrote.

But, "Three circuits ... have held the opposite," he added. "The circuits will remain divided unless this Court intervenes."

"Coinbase must now devote significant time, energy, and resources to burdensome putative class actions in two District Courts even though the Ninth Circuit is likely to conclude that neither case belongs in federal court to begin with," Katyal wrote."....