The Hotel Amwayfornia

"You can checkout any time you like, But you can never leave!"

I was checking out the new stuff on one of Eric Scheibeler's pages and found a new class action suit about the Amway arbitration process. 

I thought of the old Eagles song "the Hotel California" after reading the class action suit pdf_icon.gif (914 bytes) filed by Team against Amway. The suit did not last long and was consolidatedpdf_icon.gif (914 bytes) with the Monavie suit   

As many former Amway/Quixtar distributors are finding out the hard way, you might be able to checkout from Amway, but you can't really ever leave Amway for something else.  Amway wants to ensure that if you leave their heavenly body and rebuke it for another MLM, that you will certainly reap the damnation of legal hell for not accepting Amway as your Lord and Savior of business opportunities.

The suit begins with: 

The purpose of this Complaint is to enjoin Quixtar from harassing and intimidating Plaintiffs and Class Members with repetitive arbitrations asserting trumped up violations of Quixtar’s unilaterally enacted non-compete, non-solicitation, and trade secret rules, and to obtain a declaration that these rules and Quixtar’s arbitration agreement are unenforceable. Quixtar has undertaken this abusive litigation strategy to bankrupt former Quixtar distributors and to coerce them into abandoning the lawful pursuit of independent businesses as distributors of MonaVie, LLC

Former Amway distributors are learning first hand how warped and abusive the Amway/Quixtar arbitration process can be.   The suit exposes issues and abuses of arbitration that only a "reputable" company like Amway can be associated with.   

207. Enjoining Quixtar from enforcing arbitration will not harm the public interest.  Quixtar arbitrations do not serve the public interest and do not further the goals of the Federal Arbitration Act. For example, one federal judge remarked that the Woodward Arbitration had become “a hydra-headed monster” that bears little resemblance to the purposes intended to be achieved by the Federal Arbitration Act. The Court expressed that it had “never seen anything like this,” other than in the most complicated of securities cases, and the arbitration was not accomplishing the goals of arbitration.
See Tr. at 26-27. 42-45, 61-62, attached as Exhibit 15pdf_icon.gif (914 bytes).

Exhibit 15pdf_icon.gif (914 bytes) is interesting to read.  Judge Gerald Rosen for the Eastern District of Michigan spanks the sloppy, drawn out and inefficient arbitration process that JAMS and Amway use to drive their opponents into submission.  The judge questions the JAMS arbitrator's ability to handle the arbitration efficiently.   Of course the JAMS arbitrator is just dancing to its Amway master's tune.   This is the whole reason why Amway insists on arbitration in the first place.

You can see first hand the legal strategy of the Amway play book at work.   Amway has a 800 pound gorilla legal team and can outspend most anyone it chooses to do battle with.   Amway attorneys and their legal henchman like Robert Sobieraj at Brinks Hofer Gilson & Lione keep their opponents locked up in battle in their "Star Chamber" of arbitration with JAMS until they submit to Amway's will. 

Really, I do not understand Amway's motivation here.   They claim tens of thousands of distributors and millions of dollars of sales are at stake yet, there is nothing Amway can do to get those sales or distributors back.   The whole Team LOS has been decimated and those that decided to stay saw their bonuses cancled anyway.   Amway has nothing left to protect in that LOS.   They cannot force those people to buy product again, and Amway really sells no product similar to Monavie anyway.   They should just let it go. Amway is playing the 800 pound baby and saying if you don't play in my sand box then you can never play anywhere else either.   It is plain childish and plain un-American.     

I will leave you with a quote from the suit supposedly by Amway co-founder Jay Vanandel:

“a person who is not free to pick his job or occupation
or to go into business for himself is not free.”

Amway prides itself on "Free Enterprise" but it is anything but the center of Free Enterprise these days.  With the potential millstone of arbitration coming up after you leave the Amway business, why would anyone in their right mind join the business?  Just ask the the Team, Bruce Anderson, Billy Florence, Eric Scheibeler, Morrison, and the Middleton's how the Amway arbitration process can come back to bite you after you are no longer in Amway.