I. Introduction

Earlier this year, the American Arbitration Association (“AAA”) published Mass Arbitration in Transition: What 2025 Data Reveals About a Shifting Landscape. This is the AAA’s second annual look at the mass arbitrations filed on its docket. At first glance, the headline number looks like good news for businesses: the AAA received approximately 280,000 individual mass arbitration demands in 2024, but just under 105,000 in 2025. Read more closely, however, the data tells a different story. The number of distinct mass arbitration campaigns held essentially steady (88 in 2025 compared to 92 in 2024), and the AAA has seen close to 250 unique mass arbitrations since 2023 alone. Thus, plaintiffs’ firms are not filing fewer campaigns; they are filing campaigns of different sizes, in different industries, and on evolving legal theories.

At bottom: mass arbitration filing activity remains high heading into the end of 2026, and SPB expects filings to continue at elevated levels throughout 2027. Below, we summarize the key figures from the AAA’s report, get behind the data, and offer practical steps for companies with consumer-facing arbitration agreements. Read on to learn more.

II.  Mass Arbitration Overview

For several decades, it has been common practice for businesses to include arbitration provisions with class action waivers in their consumer and employment agreements. This arrangement provided assurance that the business would not face the abuses of the class action procedure: a plaintiffs’ lawyer finding one plaintiff and threatening massive liability without individualized determinations on the merits. Instead, bolstered by the Supreme Court’s 2011 decision in AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion, 563 U.S. 333, which struck down a California law prohibiting class action waivers in consumer contracts, a business could compel any disputes to be heard on a one-on-one basis before an arbitral body.

The most frequently used arbitral bodies—the AAA and JAMS—use a similar fee structure for consumer and employment cases. Critically, under the rules of both organizations, a consumer or employee filing a case does not pay all of the initial filing fee: the business must bear the bulk of the filing fee, which may be a couple thousand dollars per case. This filing fee is incurred before any arbitrator decides the merits of the case. Arbitrator appointments and other case administration beyond filing also incur per-case fees.

Without the benefit of the class action procedure, plaintiffs’ lawyers since Concepcion have used another means to create an outsized liability threat: filing hundreds or thousands of arbitration claims against the same business. In these “mass arbitrations,” the business may be on the hook for millions of dollars in arbitration filing fees regardless of the merits of the claims being asserted. Moreover, the plaintiffs’ lawyer will point to the arbitration provision drafted by the business as prohibiting a class action or other consolidation method that could limit the number of cases being litigated and the fees incurred.

This mass arbitration technique first appeared in 2018 and 2019 in the context of wage-and-hour claims, where plaintiffs’ firms could recruit employees and contractors of companies via online advertising and enrollment. Post-COVID, mass arbitrations have expanded to other claims, in particular many consumer privacy and data breach statutes such as the Video Privacy Protection Act (“VPPA”), the California Invasion of Privacy Act (“CIPA”), and Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act (“BIPA”). These federal and state privacy laws are particularly appealing to plaintiffs’ lawyers for mass arbitrations because they often (i) have a private right of action, (ii) provide for statutory liquidated damages without the need to prove actual damages, and (iii) may be plausibly asserted against common consumer-business interactions—like website visits, mobile app downloads, or data processing—that are identical for thousands of recruitable claimants.

In the face of these mass arbitrations, JAMS and the AAA have started to issue rules specific to mass arbitrations, defined to mean arbitrations involving more than a certain number of demands against one respondent filed by the same law firm or coordinating law firms. However, the nature of the underlying fee structure has meant that plaintiffs’ firms can still generate massive leverage against businesses by filing a mass arbitration, regardless of the merits.

III.  Breakdown of the AAA’s Recent Mass Arbitration Statistics

Mass arbitration, as the AAA defines it, involves 25 or more similar demands filed against a common entity where representation on each side is consistent or coordinated (the threshold is 100 cases for non-consumer, non-employment matters). Key recent AAA data points include:

  • AAA Consumer Filings: 104,556 new consumer demands across 81 unique mass arbitration caseloads.
  • Top Consumer Industries: Entertainment/Gaming (42,299 demands), Retail (32,203), Financial Services (8,584), Hospitality/Travel (8,527), and Telecommunications (5,978).
  • Awards Remain Rare: Fewer than 1% of consumer mass arbitration cases reaching the merits phase were decided by award, compared to roughly 14% of individual (non-mass) consumer arbitrations.
  • California Dominates: California was the top locale for both consumer and employment merits caseloads, accounting for 3,345 of the consumer merits cases.

As the AAA itself stresses, “[v]olatility has defined the marketplace, with data fluctuating wildly year-to-year as large mass arbitrations create equally large shifts in numbers.” https://www.adr.org/news-and-insights/what-2025-data-reveals-about-mass-arbitration/. The data published this year by the AAA bears that out. The drop in employment demands is almost entirely attributable to one mass arbitration of about 30,000 cases filed in 2024 that had no counterpart in 2025. On the consumer side, the Gaming/Entertainment mass arbitration category remained the largest source of new demands but saw about 59,000 fewer demands than in 2024. In other words, the decline in the number of cases filed with the AAA reflects fewer mega-filings, not fewer mass arbitration campaigns.

At the same time, the targets are shifting. Retail was not a top sector in 2024 but generated more than 32,000 new demands in 2025, and the Hospitality/Travel category likewise emerged with more than 8,500 new consumer demands. Technology, which had more than 50,000 demands in 2024, did not make the 2025 list at all. The AAA concludes that these shifts reflect the wide variety of claims that can be brought in mass arbitration—a conclusion also consistent with SPB’s experience in this space.

IV.  Mass Arbitration Predictions Heading into the End of 2026 and the Start of 2027

  • The economics of mass arbitration still favor claimants’ counsel at the demand stage. The AAA’s recent settlement data confirms that the core features of mass arbitration remain consistent: for many defendants, high settlement rates and early resolution before merits arbitrators are appointed. Even under the AAA’s revised fee structure, consumers pay a flat $3,125 fee at filing regardless of how many cases are filed, while the business bears the larger share of fees. See, e.g., https://www.privacyworld.blog/2024/03/updates-to-mass-arbitration-rules-scope-and-anticipated-impact/. As long as the cost of defending thousands of individual claims exceeds the cost of a global settlement, the incentive to file will persist.
  • The plaintiffs’ bar continues to adapt the privacy theories underlying many mass arbitrations as the legal landscape evolves. Consumer privacy and data breach statutes such as the VPPA, CIPA, and BIPA have become staples of mass arbitration, as we discussed in our 2025 Mass Arbitration Year in Review.  Plaintiffs’ firms have filed thousands of class actions and mass arbitration demands against operators of consumer-facing websites and apps targeting tools such as advertising pixels. As CIPA’s most popular theories are narrowed by the courts and by the California Legislature’s passage of SB 690 in August 2026, the same firms are increasingly pairing or replacing CIPA counts with claims under the federal Wiretap Act, the VPPA, and out-of-state wiretap laws led by Florida’s Security of Communications Act (“FSCA”). Separately, on January 26, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in a case presenting a circuit split over who counts as a “consumer” under the VPPA, with a decision expected by mid-2027. A broad ruling could support expanded filings of VPPA claims, in court and in arbitration, during 2027.
  • Many companies’ arbitration programs are in flux, given uncertainty in the case law and in the filing landscape before the AAA, JAMS, and other arbitration providers. The AAA reports that commentators predict a “fork in the road,” whereby “[s]ome businesses may amend their clauses to allow class actions, either in arbitration or in court, while other businesses may continue to use arbitration, including mass arbitrations, and decide to try cases to award.”  https://www.adr.org/news-and-insights/what-2025-data-reveals-about-mass-arbitration/.

V.  Conclusion

  • Revisit your arbitration agreement now. The AAA reports that it is seeing more detailed clauses that set out specific mass arbitration procedures, pre-conditions to filing, and expanded authority for Process Arbitrators. Companies whose consumer arbitration agreements do not address these procedures should assess whether updates are warranted.
  • Audit tracking technologies. Because privacy statutes continue to supply the legal theories behind many campaigns, companies should review their use of pixels, session replay, embedded video, and similar tools, along with their consent mechanisms.
  • Plan for California. With California serving as the dominant locale for merits caseloads, California-specific exposure should be a central part of any mass arbitration risk assessment.

As the AAA puts it, mass arbitration remains a “young field ripe for development.” https://www.adr.org/news-and-insights/what-2025-data-reveals-about-mass-arbitration/. The AAA’s statistics show a marketplace that is changing shape, not shrinking.

With privacy theories migrating to new statutes, a VPPA decision from the Supreme Court on the horizon, and mass arbitration expanding into new consumer sectors, SPB expects filings to remain high through the remainder of 2026 and into 2027. SPB’s Data Disputes team will continue to monitor these developments, so stay tuned to Privacy World for further updates.