Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/10pdf/09-893.pdf
Page Number: 7.0

4 

AT&T MOBILITY LLC v. CONCEPCION 

Opinion of the Court 

simply  “a  refinement  of  the  unconscionability  analysis
applicable to contracts generally in California.”  584 F. 3d, 
at  857.  In  response  to  AT&T’s  argument  that  the  Con-
cepcions’  interpretation  of  California  law  discriminated 
against arbitration, the Ninth Circuit rejected the conten-
tion that “ ‘class proceedings will reduce the efficiency and 
expeditiousness  of  arbitration’ ”  and  noted  that  “ ‘Discover 
Bank  placed  arbitration  agreements  with  class  action 
waivers  on  the  exact  same  footing  as  contracts  that  bar 
class  action  litigation  outside  the  context  of  arbitration.’ ”  
Id.,  at  858  (quoting  Shroyer  v.  New  Cingular  Wireless 
Services, Inc., 498 F. 3d 976, 990 (CA9 2007)).
We granted certiorari, 560 U. S. ___ (2010). 

II 

The FAA was enacted in 1925 in response to widespread 
judicial  hostility  to  arbitration  agreements.    See  Hall 
Street  Associates,  L.  L.  C.  v.  Mattel,  Inc.,  552  U. S.  576, 
581 (2008).  Section 2, the “primary substantive provision 
of  the  Act,”  Moses  H.  Cone  Memorial  Hospital  v.  Mercury 
Constr. Corp., 460 U. S. 1, 24 (1983), provides, in relevant
part, as follows: 

“A written provision in any maritime transaction or 
a  contract  evidencing  a  transaction  involving  com-
merce to settle by arbitration a controversy thereafter
arising out of such contract or transaction . . . shall be 
valid,  irrevocable,  and  enforceable,  save  upon  such
grounds as exist at law or in equity for the revocation
of any contract.”  9 U. S. C. §2. 

We  have  described  this  provision  as  reflecting  both  a 
“liberal  federal  policy  favoring  arbitration,”  Moses  H. 
Cone,  supra,  at  24,  and  the  “fundamental  principle  that 
arbitration  is  a  matter  of  contract,”  Rent-A-Center,  West, 
Inc. v. Jackson, 561 U. S. ____ , ____ (2010) (slip op., at 3). 
In line with these principles, courts must place arbitration