The Supreme Court docket on Friday afternoon added a brand new case to its oral argument docket for the 2026-27 time period, granting a petition for assessment filed by Goldman Sachs Financial institution in a case over whether or not and when a chapter courtroom can override the Federal Arbitration Act and refuse to honor an settlement to arbitrate disputes.
The dispute wherein the justices agreed to weigh in, Goldman Sachs Bank USA v. Brown, started three years in the past, when Rhea Brown and Gregory Maze filed for chapter. Each listed bank card money owed with Goldman Sachs Financial institution as considered one of their money owed.
The Chapter Code imposes an automatic stay, which (amongst different issues) bars collectors from making an attempt to gather money owed from somebody who has filed for chapter. As a result of Goldman Sachs, based on Maze and Brown, repeatedly continued to attempt to search fee of their bank card money owed, they filed an adversary continuing (that’s, a separate lawsuit throughout the broader chapter case) towards the financial institution, wherein they contended that the financial institution had willfully violated the automated keep provision.
Pointing to an arbitration clause of their bank card agreements, Goldman Sachs requested the chapter courtroom to place the adversary continuing on maintain and require Brown and Maze to arbitrate their dispute. The chapter courtroom denied that request, and each the federal district courtroom and the U.S. Court docket of Appeals for the 4th Circuit upheld that ruling. A divided three-judge panel of the 4th Circuit concluded that requiring Brown and Maze to arbitrate their declare “would intervene and battle with the sturdy and established insurance policies and functions of the Chapter Code.”
Goldman Sachs got here to the Supreme Court docket in June, asking the justices to take up its case. It told the courtroom that the 4th Circuit’s ruling squarely conflicted with a choice by the U.S. Court docket of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit. Furthermore, it added, “[t]he sensible stakes of those points are huge” due to the ubiquity of arbitration clauses in client credit score agreements. The 4th Circuit’s determination, it stated, “imperils the enforceability of arbitration agreements in a lot of them.”
After contemplating Goldman Sachs’ petition for review at 4 consecutive conferences, the justices granted it on Friday afternoon. The case doubtless will probably be argued someday subsequent yr, with a choice to comply with by late June or early July.
Extra orders from the justices’ personal convention on Friday are anticipated at 9:30 a.m. EST on Monday.
Beneficial Quotation: Amy Howe, Supreme Court docket agrees to weigh in on Goldman Sachs arbitration dispute, SCOTUSblog (Nov. 6, 2026, 3:35 PM), https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/11/supreme-court-agrees-to-weigh-in-on-goldman-sachs-arbitration-dispute/