FINRA Dispute Resolution Services (“DRS”) posted case statistics through May, with the overall case filing trends essentially unchanged from April. Also, the AAA released new data on “virtual events” in the case administration process.
The Basics from FINRA
In brief, the headlines are: 1) overall arbitration filings through May – 1,258 cases – are down 19%, about the same as in April; 2) customer claims remain up at plus 2%; 3) industry disputes are almost halved, down 39%; and 4) for the ninth month in a row, pending cases declined and the COVID-induced backlog is completely gone. Overall arbitration turnaround times were 13.5 months, with hearing cases now taking 15.4 months. There were just 164 mediation cases in agreement, a 16% decrease. The settlement rate remains high at 84% (it had been 83% in April). There are now 8,390 DRS arbitrators, 3,989 public and 4,401 non-public. The latter figure declined by 43 month-over-month.
Virtual Arbitrations at FINRA
Perhaps of greater interest in the current climate, FINRA’s “Virtual Arbitration Hearings” category shows that, since FINRA started cancelling in-person hearings over a year ago, 337 cases were conducted with one or more hearings via Zoom (123 customer and 214 industry cases). There were 298 joint motions for virtual hearings (107 customer and 191 industry cases). As reported in SAA 2021-10 (Mar. 18), DRS in March posted two new stats on its Website that allow users to gauge results in hearings conducted by Zoom: Awards on the Merits of the Case with One or More Zoom Evidentiary Hearings and Awards on the Merits of the Case with In-Person Evidentiary Hearings are both listed under the category, Result of Customer Claimant Arbitration Award Cases (Regular Hearing Only.
“Virtual Events” at the AAA
The AAA has posted on its Website stats on various case administration metrics dating back to the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The interactive Virtual Events page covers March 1, 2020, through April 30, 2021, and shows that there were 5,902 cases with a “”virtual event,” broken down as follows: evidentiary hearing (8,429); mediation session (937); pre-mediation conference (105); preliminary hearing (1,015); and settlement conference (7). That’s a total of 10,493 virtual events. The “Virtual Events By Month” chart reveals that usage increased one hundred fold over the course of the pandemic, from a low of 17 events in March 2020 to 1,779 in March 2021.
(ed: *We had reported for months that pending cases had grown in the wake of the onset of the pandemic and in-person hearing cancellations. We’ve also reported more recently that parties and counsel appear to have grown more familiar with virtual hearings and that, as a result, the pending cases backlog has been shrinking. As of May, it’s completely gone; in fact, there’s a net reduction in pending cases since the pandemic started. The last nine months have each experienced reductions in pending cases, reflecting a 727 case decline from last year’s high water mark of 5,415 open cases in August. This now leaves a cumulative decrease of 93 pending cases since March 2020. **Kudos to AAA for the new stats.)
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