U.S. Supreme Court Grants District Courts Jurisdiction Over Coinbase's Dogecoin Disputes
Summary:
The U.S. Supreme Court recently overruled Coinbase's user agreement, giving district courts jurisdiction over Dogecoin sweepstakes disputes. This decision comes after conflicting clauses were found in the user agreement for dispute resolution between Coinbase and its users. Separately, Coinbase experienced a major system outage, affecting its mobile and desktop trading services. The company assured users that their funds were secure.
The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that district courts could preside over sweepstakes disputes involving Dogecoin rewards, overriding Coinbase's user agreement. In June 2021, Coinbase, a popular crypto exchange platform, initiated a Dogecoin sweepstakes marketing event. The user agreement incorporated some conflicting sections related to dispute resolution. Coinbase's preference was for arbitrators to handle financial disputes, whereas users sought legal intervention. These two options were distinctly registered in the platform's agreements. On May 23, the Supreme Court confirmed the jurisdiction of both state and federal courts over any disputes related to Coinbase’s sweepstakes campaign.
The judgment stressed that, rather than an arbitrator, a court should ascertain if the parties' initial agreement has been replaced by a second one, endorsing the stance of the Ninth Circuit. Justice Neil Gorsuch, who was appointed by President Donald Trump in 2017, stated that arbitration is a contractual matter and reminded, "Parties (crypto exchanges and users) may agree in a contract that an arbitrator, rather than a court, will resolve threshold arbitrability questions as well as underlying merits disputes."
In the ruling, the Supreme Court dismissed Coinbase’s claim that challenges to delegation clauses could generate chaos, insisting that they see no imminent disorder resulting from their approach. In the U.S., courts are not entitled to intervene in disputes if the contracts only include an arbitration clause. However, if users accept two contracts — one sending arbitrability disputes to arbitration, and the second designating arbitrability disputes to the courts — it's a court's duty to decide which contract takes precedence.
In related news, Coinbase recently experienced a significant system outage affecting its mobile and desktop trading services. On May 14, Coinbase Support’s official account announced the issue, stating that it's being investigated and a resolution is underway, while reassuring users that their funds were secure.
An attempt to access the website resulted in a “503 Service Temporarily Unavailable” error message. As per a developer guide on Mozilla, this is usually indicative of servers undergoing maintenance or being overloaded.
Published At
5/24/2024 11:07:34 AM
Disclaimer: Algoine does not endorse any content or product on this page. Readers should conduct their own research before taking any actions related to the asset, company, or any information in this article and assume full responsibility for their decisions. This article should not be considered as investment advice. Our news is prepared with AI support.
Do you suspect this content may be misleading, incomplete, or inappropriate in any way, requiring modification or removal?
We appreciate your report.