Plea bargain
Plea bargain as a formal legal provision was introduced in Pakistan by the National Accountability Ordinance 1999, an anti-corruption law. A special feature of this plea bargain is that the accused applies for it, accepting guilt, and offers to return the proceeds of corruption as determined by investigators/prosecutors. After an endorsement by the Chairman National Accountability Bureau, the request is presented before the court, which decides whether it should be accepted or not. If the request for plea bargain is accepted by the court, the accused stands convicted but neither is sentenced if in trial nor undergoes any sentence previously pronounced by a lower court if in appeal. The accused is disqualified to take part in elections, hold any public office, or obtain a loan from any bank; the accused is also dismissed from service if a government official.
Southland Corp. v. Keating
Since "Southland" and subsequent decisions held that state courts have no basis other than standard defenses to contract validity for staying arbitration, the states have instead begun to regulate the arbitration process and agreement themselves, particularly through a model statute called the Revised Uniform Arbitration Act (RUAA) which has as of 2010 been adopted by 13 states and the District of Columbia, with three more states considering it. California now requires that an arbitrator disclose any potential conflicts of interest to parties prior to the arbitration, and New Mexico added to its version of the RUAA a "disabling civil dispute clause" making arbitration agreements voidable in consumer, credit, employment and tenant contracts. Some of these have been challenged in court. One case that did, "Green Tree Financial Inc. v. Bazzle", where a South Carolina court had ordered arbitration on a class basis, reached the Supreme Court but the majority did not consider the question, instead considering whether the contract permitted class arbitration to begin with (Rehnquist argued in his dissent that the FAA did indeed preempt).