As a member of the Board of Governors and Leaders Forum of the American Association for Justice (AAJ), I am so very proud of our most recent victory in successfully fighting forced arbitration.

The AAJ’s public affairs and communications teams were successful in squelching the efforts of The Carlyle Group, a private equity firm, to eliminate investor lawsuits! Carlyle filed with the SEC on January 10 to go public, and those IPO filings included a mandatory arbitration clause. As a result of the AAJ’s efforts, Carlyle backed down.

Make no mistake: this is an important victory for the public because if Carlyle had been successful, all other companies that go public would probably have added a similar clause.

Media outlets jumped on the news. The Wall Street Journal quoted from an AAJ statement that Carlyle’s decision to drop the clause had been a “blatant attempt to skirt accountability” and a “predatory maneuver to circumvent well-established securities law and force investors into a rigged and biased process.”

In its response, the AAJ also stated that the development “should send a strong signal to other companies that forced arbitration clauses will not be accepted by investors or the SEC.”