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Page Number: 25.0

12 

AMERICAN EXPRESS CO. v. ITALIAN COLORS 

RESTAURANT 
KAGAN, J., dissenting 

See 554 F. 3d 300, 318 (2009).  It is only in this Court that 
the  case  has  become  strangely  narrow,  as  the  majority
stares at a single provision rather than considering, in the 
way the effective-vindication rule demands, how the entire 
contract operates.5 

In any event, the age of the relevant procedural mecha-
nisms  (whether  class  actions  or  any  other)  does  not  mat-
ter,  because  the  effective-vindication  rule  asks  about  the 
world  today,  not  the  world  as  it  might  have  looked  when 
Congress  passed  a  given  statute.  Whether  a  particular 
procedural  device  preceded  or  post-dated  a  particular
statute,  the  question  remains  the  same:  Does  the  arbi-
tration  agreement  foreclose  a  party—right  now—from
effectively  vindicating  the  substantive  rights  the  statute 
provides?  This case exhibits a whole raft of changes since
Congress  passed  the  Sherman  Act,  affecting  both  parties
to  the  dispute—not  just  new  procedural  rules  (like  Rule 
23),  but  also  new  evidentiary  requirements  (like  the
demand here for an expert report) and new contract provi-
sions affecting arbitration (like this agreement’s confiden-
tiality  clause).    But  what  has  stayed  the  same  is  this:
Congress’s intent that antitrust plaintiffs should be able to
enforce their rights free of any prior waiver.  See supra, at 
2–3;  Mitsubishi,  473  U. S.,  at  637,  n. 19.    The  effective-
vindication rule carries out that purpose by ensuring that 

—————— 

5 In  defense  of  this  focus,  the  majority  quotes  the  Second  Circuit  as 
concluding  that  “the  only  economically  feasible  means”  for  Italian 
Colors to enforce its statutory rights “is via a class action.”  Ante, at 7– 
8,  n. 4  (quoting  667  F. 3d,  at  218;  internal  quotation  marks  omitted; 
emphasis added by the Court).  But the Court of Appeals reached that
conclusion  only  after  finding  that  the  agreement  prohibited  all  other 
forms of cost-sharing and cost-shifting.  See 554 F. 3d 300, 318 (2009). 
(That opinion was vacated on other grounds, but its analysis continued 
to inform—indeed, was essential to—the Second Circuit’s final decision 
in  the  case.    See  667  F. 3d,  at  218.)    The  Second  Circuit  therefore  did 
exactly  what  the  majority  refuses  to  do—look  to  the  agreement  as  a 
whole to determine whether it permits the vindication of federal rights.