“District Court says retailer not an intended third-party beneficiary of a credit card arbitration provision”

Lexology has published this article by Buckley, discussing the decision by a California federal court in Hayden v. The Retail Equation, Inc. refusing to find that a retailer was a third party beneficiary of a consumer’s agreement with its credit card company. Summarizing the decision, the article notes that “the contract did not clearly ‘express an intention to confer a separate and distinct benefit on [the retailer].’ Moreover, the court noted the contract at issue instructed the plaintiff to send any arbitration demand notices to the bank, adding that ‘[i]t seems unlikely that the parties would expect a demand for arbitration solely against the [retailer]—that does not involve [the bank]—to be sent to [the bank].’”