Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-1573_8p6h.pdf
Page Number: 18.0

14 

VIKING RIVER CRUISES, INC. v. MORIANA 

Opinion of the Court 

of the proceeds of a qui tam action “does not even fully ma-
terialize  until  the  litigation  is  completed  and  the  relator 
prevails”).

Because  PAGA  actions  do  not  adjudicate  the  individual
claims of multiple absent third parties, they do not present 
the problems of notice, due process, and adequacy of repre-
sentation that render class arbitration inconsistent with ar-
bitration’s  traditionally  individualized  form.  See  Concep-
cion, 563 U. S., at 347–348.  Of course, as a practical matter, 
PAGA  actions  do  have  something  important  in  common 
with  class  actions.    Because  PAGA  plaintiffs  represent  a
principal with a potentially vast number of claims at its dis-
posal, PAGA suits “greatly increas[e] risks to defendants.” 
Id., at 350.  But our precedents do not hold that the FAA
allows  parties  to  contract  out  of  anything  that  might  am-
plify defense risks.  Instead, our cases hold that States can-
not  coerce  individuals  into  forgoing  arbitration  by  taking
the individualized and informal procedures characteristic of 
traditional arbitration off the table.  Litigation risks are rel-
evant to that inquiry because one way in which state law 
may coerce parties into forgoing their right to arbitrate is
by conditioning that right on the use of a procedural format
that makes arbitration artificially unattractive.  The ques-
tion, then, is whether PAGA contains any procedural mech-
anism at odds with arbitration’s basic form. 

Viking  suggests  an  answer.    Our  FAA  precedents  treat 
bilateral arbitration as the prototype of the individualized 
and informal form of arbitration protected from undue state
interference by the FAA.  See Epic Systems, 584 U. S., at 
___–___ (slip op., at 8–9); see also American Express Co. v. 
Italian Colors Restaurant, 570 U. S. 228, 238 (2013); Con-
cepcion, 563 U. S., at 347–349; Stolt-Nielsen, 559 U. S., at 
685–686.  Viking posits that a proceeding is “bilateral” in
the relevant sense if—but only if—it involves two and only 
two parties and the arbitration “ ‘is conducted by and on be-
half of the individual named parties only.’ ”  Wal-Mart, 564