Sounds fine an dandy when it's "stick it to the big evil corp that has revenues in the hundreds of millions", but a side-effect is that it'll make insurance and legal costs higher for smaller (and potentially very honest) companies.
And in the case that they did do what was obligated and win the case with 100 hours worth of lawyer time spent? Will the small party pay the lawyer fees for the company?
Their lawyer would spend some time regardless of whether the other party's lawyer was there or not. Sure, they may have to answer some filings or produce something (I don't really know the rules and procedures of arbitration) but again, a competent person without an attorney would come close to that anyway.
If the lawyer loses on contingency after spending 100 hours, nobody pays them; that lawyer eats the loss.
I've been thinking about it, and I think it's mostly a balancing of the scales - the company sets the initial terms of the contract almost every time, and has a completely disproportionate amount of power in the relationship. This is a bit more of a spin the other direction, but it still doesn't quite get there.
Yeah, it's fucked up, but it's a response to the company being able to do more things that are fucked up and doesn't come out of nowhere.
