Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/12-133?redir=1
Timestamp: 2020-06-01 14:24:25
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Matched Legal Cases: ['§1', '§4', '§15', '§2072', '§1752', '§1303', '§2']

AMERICAN EXPRESS CO. v. ITALIAN COLORS RESTAURANT | Supreme Court | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute
An agreement between petitioners, American Express and a subsidiary, and respondents, merchants who accept American Express cards, requires all of their disputes to be resolved by arbitration and provides that there “shall be no right or authority for any Claims to be arbitrated on a class action basis.” Respondents nonetheless filed a class action, claiming that petitioners violated §1 of the Sherman Act and seeking treble damages for the class under §4 of the Clayton Act. Petitioners moved to compel individual arbitration under the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), but respondents countered that the cost of expert analysis necessary to prove the antitrust claims would greatly exceed the maximum recovery for an individual plaintiff. The District Court granted the motion and dismissed the lawsuits. The Second Circuit reversed and remanded, holding that because of the prohibitive costs respondents would face if they had to arbitrate, the class-action waiver was unenforceable and arbitration could not proceed. The Circuit stood by its reversal when this Court remanded in light of Stolt-Nielsen S. A. v. AnimalFeeds International Corp., 559 U. S. 662, which held that a party may not be compelled to submit to class arbitration absent an agreement to do so.
(a) The FAA reflects the overarching principle that arbitration is a matter of contract. See Rent-A-Center, West, Inc. v. Jackson, 561 U. S. ___, ___. Courts must “rigorously enforce” arbitration agreements according to their terms, Dean Witter Reynolds, Inc. v. Byrd, 470 U. S. 213, 221, even for claims alleging a violation of a federal statute, unless the FAA’s mandate has been “ ‘overridden by a contrary congressional command,’ ” CompuCredit Corp. v. Greenwood, 565 U. S. ___, ___. Pp. 3–4.
(b) No contrary congressional command requires rejection of the class-arbitration waiver here. The antitrust laws do not guarantee an affordable procedural path to the vindication of every claim, see Rodriguez v. United States, 480 U. S. 522, 525–526, or “evince an intention to preclude a waiver” of class-action procedure, Mitsubishi Motors Corp. v. Soler-Chrysler-Plymouth, Inc., 473 U. S. 614, 628. Nor does congressional approval of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23 establish an entitlement to class proceedings for the vindication of statutory rights. The Rule imposes stringent requirements for certification that exclude most claims, and this Court has rejected the assertion that the class-notice requirement must be dispensed with because the “prohibitively high cost” of compliance would “frustrate [plaintiff’s] attempt to vindicate the policies underlying the antitrust” laws, Eisen v. Carlisle & Jacquelin, 417 U. S. 156, 167–168, 175–176. Pp. 4–5.
(c) The “effective vindication” exception that originated as dictum in Mitsubishi Motors Corp. v. Soler Chrysler-Plymouth, Inc., 473 U. S. 614, also does not invalidate the instant arbitration agreement. The exception comes from a desire to prevent “prospective waiver of a party’s right to pursue statutory remedies,” id., at 637, n. 19; but the fact that it is not worth the expense involved in proving a statutory remedy does not constitute the elimination of the right to pursue that remedy. Cf. Gilmer v. Interstate/Johnson Lane Corp., 500 U. S. 20, 32; Vimar Seguros y Reaseguros, S. A. v. M/V Sky Reefer, 515 U. S. 528, 530, 534. AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion, 563 U. S. ___, all but resolves this case. There, in finding that a law that conditioned enforcement of arbitration on the availability of class procedure interfered with fundamental arbitration attributes, id., at ___, the Court specifically rejected the argument that class arbitration was necessary to prosecute claims “that might otherwise slip through the legal system,” id., at ___. Pp. 5–9.
We granted certiorari, vacated the judgment, and remanded for further consideration in light of Stolt-Nielsen S. A. v. AnimalFeeds Int’l Corp., 559 U. S. 662 (2010), which held that a party may not be compelled to submit to class arbitration absent an agreement to do so. American Express Co. v. Italian Colors Restaurant, 559 U. S. 1103 (2010). The Court of Appeals stood by its reversal, stating that its earlier ruling did not compel class arbitration. In re American Express Merchants’ Litigation, 634 F. 3d 187, 200 (CA2 2011). It then sua sponte reconsidered its ruling in light of AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion, 563 U. S. ___ (2011), which held that the FAA pre-empted a state law barring enforcement of a class-arbitration waiver. Finding AT&T Mobility inapplicable because it addressed pre-emption, the Court of Appeals reversed for the third time. 667 F. 3d, at 213. It then denied rehearing en banc with five judges dissenting. In re American Express Merchants’ Litigation, 681 F. 3d 139 (CA2 2012). We granted certiorari, 568 U. S. ___ (2012), to consider the question “[w]hether the Federal Arbitration Act permits courts . . . to invalidate arbitration agreements on the ground that they do not permit class arbitration of a federal-law claim,” Pet. for Cert. i.
This text reflects the overarching principle that arbitration is a matter of contract. See Rent-A-Center, West, Inc. v. Jackson, 561 U. S. ___, ___ (2010) (slip op., at 3). And consistent with that text, courts must “rigorously enforce” arbitration agreements according to their terms, Dean Witter Reynolds Inc. v. Byrd, 470 U. S. 213, 221 (1985), including terms that “specify with whom [the parties] choose to arbitrate their disputes,” Stolt-Nielsen, supra, at 683, and “the rules under which that arbitration will be conducted,” Volt Information Sciences, Inc. v. Board of Trustees of Leland Stanford Junior Univ., 489 U. S. 468, 479 (1989). That holds true for claims that allege a violation of a federal statute, unless the FAA’s mandate has been “ ‘overridden by a contrary congressional command.’ ” CompuCredit Corp. v. Greenwood, 565 U. S. ___, ___ (2012) (slip op., at 2–3) (quoting Shearson/American Express Inc. v. McMahon, 482 U. S. 220, 226 (1987)).
No contrary congressional command requires us to reject the waiver of class arbitration here. Respondents argue that requiring them to litigate their claims individually—as they contracted to do—would contravene the policies of the antitrust laws. But the antitrust laws do not guarantee an affordable procedural path to the vindi- cation of every claim. Congress has taken some measures to facilitate the litigation of antitrust claims—for example, it enacted a multiplied-damages remedy. See 15 U. S. C. §15 (treble damages). In enacting such measures, Congress has told us that it is willing to go, in certain respects, beyond the normal limits of law in advancing its goals of deterring and remedying unlawful trade practice. But to say that Congress must have intended whatever departures from those normal limits advance antitrust goals is simply irrational. “[N]o legislation pursues its purposes at all costs.” Rodriguez v. United States, 480 U. S. 522, 525–526 (1987) (per curiam).
The antitrust laws do not “evinc[e] an intention to preclude a waiver” of class-action procedure. Mitsubishi Motors Corp. v. Soler Chrysler-Plymouth, Inc., 473 U. S. 614, 628 (1985). The Sherman and Clayton Acts make no mention of class actions. In fact, they were enacted decades before the advent of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23, which was “designed to allow an exception to the usual rule that litigation is conducted by and on behalf of the individual named parties only.” Califano v. Yamasaki, 442 U. S. 682, 700–701 (1979). The parties here agreed to arbitrate pursuant to that “usual rule,” and it would be remarkable for a court to erase that expectation.
Nor does congressional approval of Rule 23 establish an entitlement to class proceedings for the vindication of statutory rights. To begin with, it is likely that such an entitlement, invalidating private arbitration agreements denying class adjudication, would be an “abridg[ment]” or modif[ication]” of a “substantive right” forbidden to the Rules, see 28 U. S. C. §2072(b). But there is no evidence of such an entitlement in any event. The Rule imposes stringent requirements for certification that in practice exclude most claims. And we have specifically rejected the assertion that one of those requirements (the class-notice requirement) must be dispensed with because the “prohibitively high cost” of compliance would “frustrate [plain- tiff’s] attempt to vindicate the policies underlying the antitrust” laws. Eisen v. Carlisle & Jacquelin, 417 U. S. 156, 166–168, 175–176 (1974). One might respond, perhaps, that federal law secures a nonwaivable opportunity to vindicate federal policies by satisfying the procedural strictures of Rule 23 or invoking some other informal class mechanism in arbitration. But we have already rejected that proposition in AT&T Mobility, 563 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 9).
The “effective vindication” exception to which respondents allude originated as dictum in Mitsubishi Motors, where we expressed a willingness to invalidate, on “public policy” grounds, arbitration agreements that “operat[e] . . . as a prospective waiver of a party’s right to pursue statutory remedies.” 473 U. S., at 637, n. 19 (emphasis added). Dismissing concerns that the arbitral forum was inadequate, we said that “so long as the prospective litigant effectively may vindicate its statutory cause of action in the arbitral forum, the statute will continue to serve both its remedial and deterrent function.” Id., at 637. Subsequent cases have similarly asserted the existence of an “effective vindication” exception, see, e.g., 14 Penn Plaza LLC v. Pyett, 556 U. S. 247, 273–274 (2009); Gilmer v. Interstate/Johnson Lane Corp., 500 U. S. 20, 28 (1991), but have similarly declined to apply it to invalidate the arbitration agreement at issue.2
And we do so again here. As we have described, the exception finds its origin in the desire to prevent “prospective waiver of a party’s right to pursue statutory remedies,” Mitsubishi Motors, supra, at 637, n. 19 (emphasis added). That would certainly cover a provision in an arbitration agreement forbidding the assertion of certain statutory rights. And it would perhaps cover filing and administrative fees attached to arbitration that are so high as to make access to the forum impracticable. See Green Tree Financial Corp.-Ala. v. Randolph, 531 U. S. 79, 90 (2000) (“It may well be that the existence of large arbitration costs could preclude a litigant . . . from effectively vindicating her federal statutory rights”). But the fact that it is not worth the expense involved in proving a statutory remedy does not constitute the elimination of the right to pursue that remedy. See 681 F. 3d, at 147 (Jacobs, C. J., dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc).3 The class-action waiver merely limits arbitration to the two contracting parties. It no more eliminates those parties’ right to pursue their statutory remedy than did federal law before its adoption of the class action for legal relief in 1938, see Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 23, 28 U. S. C., p. 864 (1938 ed., Supp V); 7A C. Wright, A. Miller, & M. Kane, Federal Practice and Procedure §1752, p. 18 (3d ed. 2005). Or, to put it differently, the individual suit that was considered adequate to assure “effective vindication” of a federal right before adoption of class-action procedures did not suddenly become “ineffective vindication” upon their adoption.4
A pair of our cases brings home the point. In Gilmer, supra, we had no qualms in enforcing a class waiver in an arbitration agreement even though the federal statute at issue, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, ex- pressly permitted collective actions. We said that statutory permission did “ ‘not mean that individual attempts at conciliation were intended to be barred.’ ” Id., at 32. And in Vimar Seguros y Reaseguros, S. A. v. M/V Sky Reefer, 515 U. S. 528 (1995), we held that requiring arbitration in a foreign country was compatible with the federal Carriage of Goods by Sea Act. That legislation prohibited any agreement “ ‘relieving’ ” or “ ‘lessening’ ” the liability of a carrier for damaged goods, id., at 530, 534 (quoting 46 U. S. C. App. §1303(8) (1988 ed.))—which is close to codification of an “effective vindication” exception. The Court rejected the argument that the “inconvenience and costs of proceeding” abroad “lessen[ed]” the defendants’ liability, stating that “[i]t would be unwieldy and unsupported by the terms or policy of the statute to require courts to proceed case by case to tally the costs and burdens to particular plaintiffs in light of their means, the size of their claims, and the relative burden on the carrier.” 515 U. S., at 532, 536. Such a “tally[ing] [of] the costs and burdens” is precisely what the dissent would impose upon federal courts here.
Truth to tell, our decision in AT&T Mobility all but resolves this case. There we invalidated a law conditioning enforcement of arbitration on the availability of class procedure because that law “interfere[d] with fundamental attributes of arbitration.” 563 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 9). “[T]he switch from bilateral to class arbitration,” we said, “sacrifices the principal advantage of arbitration—its informality—and makes the process slower, more costly, and more likely to generate procedural morass than final judgment.” Id., at ___ (slip op., at 14). We specifically rejected the argument that class arbitration was necessary to prosecute claims “that might otherwise slip through the legal system.” Id., at ___ (slip op., at 17).5
4 Who can disagree with the dissent’s assertion that “the effective-vindication rule asks about the world today, not the world as it might have looked when Congress passed a given statute”? Post, at 12. But time does not change the meaning of effectiveness, making ineffective vindication today what was effective vindication in the past. The dissent also says that the agreement bars other forms of cost sharing—existing before the Sherman Act—that could provide effective vindication. See post, at 11–12, and n. 5. Petitioners denied that, and that is not what the Court of Appeals decision under review here held. It held that, because other forms of cost sharing were not economically feasible (“the only economically feasible means for . . . enforcing [respondents’] statutory rights is via a class action”), the class-action waiver was unenforceable. 667 F. 3d, at 218 (emphasis added). (The dissent’s assertion to the contrary cites not the opinion on appeal here, but an earlier opinion that was vacated. See In re American Express Merchants’ Litigation, 554 F. 3d 300 (CA2 2009), vacated and remanded, 559 U. S. 1103 (2010).) That is the conclusion we reject.
5 In dismissing AT&T Mobility as a case involving pre-emption and not the effective-vindication exception, the dissent ignores what that case established—that the FAA’s command to enforce arbitration agreements trumps any interest in ensuring the prosecution of low-value claims. The latter interest, we said, is “unrelated” to the FAA. 563 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 17). Accordingly, the FAA does, contrary to the dissent’s assertion, see post, at 5, favor the absence of litigation when that is the consequence of a class-action waiver, since its “ ‘principal purpose’ ” is the enforcement of arbitration agreements according to their terms. 563 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 9–10) (quoting Volt Information Sciences, Inc. v. Board of Trustees of Leland Stanford Junior Univ., 489 U. S. 468, 487 (1989)).
I join the Court’s opinion in full. I write separately to note that the result here is also required by the plain meaning of the Federal Arbitration Act. In AT&T Mobil-ity LLC v. Concepcion, 563 U. S. ___ (2011), I explained that “the FAA requires that an agreement to arbitrate be enforced unless a party successfully challenges the forma- tion of the arbitration agreement, such as by proving fraud or duress.” Id., at ___ (concurring opinion) (slip op., at 1–2). In this case, Italian Colors makes two arguments to support its conclusion that the arbitration agreement should not be enforced. First, it contends that enforcing the arbitration agreement “would contravene the policies of the antitrust laws.” Ante, at 4. Second, it contends that a court may “invalidate agreements that prevent the ‘ef- fective vindication’ of a federal statutory right.” Ante, at 6. Neither argument “concern[s] whether the contract was properly made,” Concepcion, supra, at ___ (Thomas, J., concurring) (slip op., at 5–6). Because Italian Colors has not furnished “grounds . . . for the revocation of any contract,” 9 U. S. C. §2, the arbitration agreement must be enforced. Italian Colors voluntarily entered into a con- tract containing a bilateral arbitration provision. It cannot now escape its obligations merely because the claim it wishes to bring might be economically infeasible.
Start with an uncontroversial proposition: We would refuse to enforce an exculpatory clause insulating a company from antitrust liability—say, “Merchants may bring no Sherman Act claims”—even if that clause were contained in an arbitration agreement. See ante, at 6. Congress created the Sherman Act’s private cause of action not solely to compensate individuals, but to promote “the public interest in vigilant enforcement of the antitrust laws.” Lawlor v. National Screen Service Corp., 349 U. S. 322, 329 (1955). Accordingly, courts will not enforce a prospective waiver of the right to gain redress for an antitrust injury, whether in an arbitration agreement or any other contract. See Mitsubishi Motors Corp. v. Soler Chrysler-Plymouth, Inc., 473 U. S. 614, 637, and n. 19 (1985). The same rule applies to other important federal statutory rights. See 14 Penn Plaza LLC v. Pyett, 556 U. S. 247, 273 (2009) (Age Discrimination in Employment Act); Brooklyn Savings Bank v. O’Neil, 324 U. S. 697, 704 (1945) (Fair Labor Standards Act). But its necessity is nowhere more evident than in the antitrust context. Without the rule, a company could use its monopoly power to protect its monopoly power, by coercing agreement to contractual terms eliminating its antitrust liability.
And sure enough, our cases establish this proposition: An arbitration clause will not be enforced if it prevents the effective vindication of federal statutory rights, however it achieves that result. The rule originated in Mitsubishi, where we held that claims brought under the Sherman Act and other federal laws are generally subject to arbitration. 473 U. S., at 628. By agreeing to arbitrate such a claim, we explained, “a party does not forgo the substantive rights afforded by the statute; it only submits to their resolution in an arbitral, rather than a judicial, forum.” Ibid. But crucial to our decision was a limiting principle, designed to safeguard federal rights: An arbitration clause will be enforced only “so long as the prospective litigant effectively may vindicate its statutory cause of action in the arbitral forum.” Id., at 637. If an arbitration provision “operated . . . as a prospective waiver of a party’s right to pursue statutory remedies,” we emphasized, we would “condemn[ ]” it. Id., at 637, n. 19. Similarly, we stated that such a clause should be “set[ ] aside” if “proceedings in the contractual forum will be so gravely difficult” that the claimant “will for all practical purposes be deprived of his day in court.” Id., at 632 (internal quotation marks omitted). And in the decades since Mitsubishi, we have repeated its admonition time and again, instructing courts not to enforce an arbitration agreement that effectively (even if not explicitly) forecloses a plaintiff from remedying the violation of a federal statutory right. See Gilmer v. Interstate/Johnson Lane Corp., 500 U. S. 20, 28 (1991); Vimar Seguros y Reaseguros, S. A. v. M/V Sky Reefer, 515 U. S. 528, 540 (1995); 14 Penn Plaza, 556 U. S., at 266, 273–274.
Our decision in Green Tree Financial Corp.-Ala. v. Randolph, 531 U. S. 79 (2000), confirmed that this principle applies when an agreement thwarts federal law by making arbitration prohibitively expensive. The plaintiff there (seeking relief under the Truth in Lending Act) argued that an arbitration agreement was unenforceable be- cause it “create[d] a risk” that she would have to “bear prohibitive arbitration costs” in the form of high filing and administrative fees. Id., at 90 (internal quotation marks omitted). We rejected that contention, but not because we doubted that such fees could prevent the effective vindication of statutory rights. To the contrary, we invoked our rule from Mitsubishi, making clear that it applied to the case before us. See 538 U. S., at 90. Indeed, we added a burden of proof: “[W]here, as here,” we held, a party asserting a federal right “seeks to invalidate an arbitration agreement on the ground that arbitration would be prohibitively expensive, that party bears the burden of showing the likelihood of incurring such costs.” Id., at 92. Randolph, we found, had failed to meet that burden: The evidence she offered was “too speculative.” Id., at 91. But even as we dismissed Randolph’s suit, we reminded courts to protect against arbitration agreements that make federal claims too costly to bring.
Applied as our precedents direct, the effective-vindication rule furthers the purposes not just of laws like the Sherman Act, but of the FAA itself. That statute reflects a federal policy favoring actual arbitration—that is, arbitration as a streamlined “method of resolving disputes,” not as a foolproof way of killing off valid claims. Rodriguez de Quijas v. Shearson/American Express, Inc., 490 U. S. 477, 481 (1989). Put otherwise: What the FAA prefers to litigation is arbitration, not de facto immunity. The effective-vindication rule furthers the statute’s goals by ensuring that arbitration remains a real, not faux, method of dispute resolution. With the rule, companies have good reason to adopt arbitral procedures that facilitate efficient and accurate handling of complaints. Without it, companies have every incentive to draft their agreements to extract backdoor waivers of statutory rights, making arbitration unavailable or pointless. So down one road: More arbitration, better enforcement of federal statutes. And down the other: Less arbitration, poorer enforcement of federal statutes. Which would you prefer? Or still more aptly: Which do you think Congress would?
And this is just the kind of case the rule was meant to address. Italian Colors, as I have noted, alleges that Amex used its market power to impose a tying arrangement in violation of the Sherman Act. The antitrust laws, all parties agree, provide the restaurant with a cause of action and give it the chance to recover treble damages. Here, that would mean Italian Colors could take home up to $38,549. But a problem looms. As this case comes to us, the evidence shows that Italian Colors cannot prevail in arbitration without an economic analysis defining the relevant markets, establishing Amex’s monopoly power, showing anticompetitive effects, and measuring damages. And that expert report would cost between several hundred thousand and one million dollars.1 So the expense involved in proving the claim in arbitration is ten times what Italian Colors could hope to gain, even in a best-case scenario. That counts as a “prohibitive” cost, in Randolph’s terminology, if anything does. No rational actor would bring a claim worth tens of thousands of dollars if doing so meant incurring costs in the hundreds of thousands.
An arbitration agreement could manage such a mismatch in many ways, but Amex’s disdains them all. As the Court makes clear, the contract expressly prohibits class arbitration. But that is only part of the problem.2 The agreement also disallows any kind of joinder or consolidation of claims or parties. And more: Its confidentiality provision prevents Italian Colors from informally arranging with other merchants to produce a common expert report. And still more: The agreement precludes any shifting of costs to Amex, even if Italian Colors prevails. And beyond all that: Amex refused to enter into any stipulations that would obviate or mitigate the need for the economic analysis. In short, the agreement as applied in this case cuts off not just class arbitration, but any avenue for sharing, shifting, or shrinking necessary costs. Amex has put Italian Colors to this choice: Spend way, way, way more money than your claim is worth, or relinquish your Sherman Act rights.
The majority is quite sure that the effective-vindication rule does not apply here, but has precious little to say about why. It starts by disparaging the rule as having “originated as dictum.” Ante, at 6. But it does not rest on that swipe, and for good reason. As I have explained, see supra, at 3–4, the rule began as a core part of Mitsubishi: We held there that federal statutory claims are subject to arbitration “so long as” the claimant “effectively may vindicate its [rights] in the arbitral forum.” 473 U. S., at 637 (emphasis added). The rule thus served as an essential condition of the decision’s holding.3 And in Randolph, we provided a standard for applying the rule when a claimant alleges “prohibitive costs” (“Where, as here,” etc., see supra, at 5), and we then applied that standard to the parties before us. So whatever else the majority might think of the effective-vindication rule, it is not dictum.
But the distinction the majority proffers, which excludes problems of proof, is one Mitsubishi and Randolph (and our decisions reaffirming them) foreclose. Those decisions establish what in some quarters is known as a principle: When an arbitration agreement prevents the effective vindication of federal rights, a party may go to court. That principle, by its nature, operates in diverse circumstances—not just the ones that happened to come before the Court. See supra, at 3–4. It doubtless covers the baldly exculpatory clause and prohibitive fees that the majority acknowledges would preclude an arbitration agreement’s enforcement. But so too it covers the world of other provisions a clever drafter might devise to scuttle even the most meritorious federal claims. Those provisions might deny entry to the forum in the first instance. Or they might deprive the claimant of any remedy. Or they might prevent the claimant from offering the necessary proof to prevail, as in my “no economic testimony” hypothetical—and in the actual circumstances of this case. See supra, at 3. The variations matter not at all. Whatever the precise mechanism, each “operate[s] . . . as a prospective waiver of a party’s [federal] right[s]”—and so confers immunity on a wrongdoer. Mitsubishi, 473 U. S., at 637, n. 19. And that is what counts under our decisions.4
But that notion, first of all, rests on a false premise: that this case is only about a class-action waiver. See ante, at 7, n. 4 (confining the case to that issue). It is not, and indeed could not sensibly be. The effective-vindication rule asks whether an arbitration agreement as a whole precludes a claimant from enforcing federal statutory rights. No single provision is properly viewed in isolation, because an agreement can close off one avenue to pursue a claim while leaving others open. In this case, for example, the agreement could have prohibited class arbitration without offending the effective-vindication rule if it had provided an alternative mechanism to share, shift, or reduce the necessary costs. The agreement’s problem is that it bars not just class actions, but also all mechanisms—many existing long before the Sherman Act, if that matters—for joinder or consolidation of claims, informal coordination among individual claimants, or amelioration of arbitral expenses. See supra, at 7. And contrary to the majority’s assertion, the Second Circuit well understood that point: It considered, for example, whether Italian Colors could shift expert expenses to Amex if its claim prevailed (no) or could join with merchants bringing similar claims to produce a common expert report (no again). 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
4 Gilmer and Vimar Seguros, which the majority relies on, see ante, at 8, fail to advance its argument. The plaintiffs there did not claim, as Italian Colors does, that an arbitration clause altogether precluded them from vindicating their federal rights. They averred only that arbitration would be less convenient or effective than a proceeding in court. See Gilmer v. Interstate/Johnson Lane Corp., 500 U. S. 20, 31–32 (1991); Vimar Seguros y Reaseguros, S. A. v. M/V Sky Reefer, 515 U. S. 528, 533 (1995). As I have explained, that kind of showing does not meet the effective-vindication rule’s high bar. See supra, at 6.