As of June 28, Pennsylvania has joined 20 other states and the District of Columbia in adopting the Revised Uniform Arbitration Act (RUAA), effective July 1, 2019, the objective of which is to update and facilitate the practice of arbitration. The RUAA was promulgated by the Uniform Law Commission in 2000 to replace the original Uniform Arbitration Act promulgated by the Commission in 1956.

The Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), 9 USCA Ch.1, enacted in 1925, declares that written agreements to arbitrate “shall be valid, irrevocable and enforceable” subject to the grounds to revoke any contract. Over the past several decades, the U.S. Supreme Court has consistently supported arbitration as a viable alternative for dispute resolution the most recent iteration of which is Epic Systems v. Lewis, 138 S.Ct. 1612 (May 21, 2018). Although the language of the FAA is generally procedural in nature, Southland v. Keating, 465 US 1 (1984) held that it is a substantive statute that pre-empts conflicting state law.