What I meant by cents on the dollar is usually, they broke rules, make $100 billion from it (imaginary scenario), and then the settlement from that wrong doing sees them pay out $2 billion to the affected customers that joined the class. It may be due to the fact that I’ve not paid attention to too many class action suits, but it seems like the settlement never comes close to the harm they caused.
I can tell you that I have arbitration on going, and it’s been well over a year that it has been happening. To assume that the arbitration wraps up in a month, when you’ve got lawyers involved is non-sense. I don’t believe arbitrators are in anyone’s pocket either. The arbitrators aren’t in-house council for Valve, they are a company Valve has contracted with, and they’re going to be neutral, and rule based on law, not who’s paying. As a lot of arbitration rules state that if you take the case to arbitration and lose, the one that is ruled against pays for the cost of the arbitration. Based on the “mate’s rates”, I’m guessing you’re UK based. I don’t know that legal system, so can’t say how fee structures work. But a great deal of lawyers that are suing on behalf of you, in the US, take a percentage of the settlement. So the biggest cost is all to the person being sued, as they do pay the lawyers by the hour instead of a cut of the ruling.
I don’t think Valve is changing their rules to screw customers, I think they’re doing it because they’ve found separating each case into a different arbitration claim is too expensive. And it would have been better for them all to be in one group. I believe Valve is the best game distributor, as it turns out. But if people with law degrees think they’ve broken rules, I’m all for punishing rule-breaking. In this particular scenario, it seems like it might slightly improve things for consumers, and greatly benefit small studios.
If you push everybody into a class action, it will be cheaper. Have you ever gotten more than a cent on the dollar from a class action settlement(unless you’re the class representative)? Sure the seem like the settlements are a lot of money, but if you can get the class action settled with very few claimants, no one will be able to sue over that particular issue again, so it puts it behind the company. Instead of being dogged by individuals for however long.
Well the reason is that there are state laws against outside observers, and no treaty giving any foreign government the ability to monitor. So they’re just enforcing the laws, as they’re supposed to.
Mind you I’m not saying the UN or any other nation is going to interfere, but seems really important to follow laws around voting to make sure the attitude of enforcement isn’t lax.