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.
Consumer arbitration
According to Ramona L. Lampley, the first generation of consumer arbitration clauses was characterized by drafters including not only class action waivers but also damages limitations, bars on recovery of attorney fees, requirements that consumers pay half or all of the arbitration fees, confidentiality requirements on the parties to an arbitration, or allowing the business to unilaterally select the arbitrator, all of which were found unenforceable by some court. In August 1999, "Consumer Reports" cited a then-superseded arbitration clause by Gateway where a consumer would have to pay $2,000 to file a claim, would have to mail the claim to a Paris address, and would have to travel to Chicago for arbitration hearings. However, in 2001, Christopher R. Drahozal wrote that "unfair arbitration clauses" are less prevalent than thought, and that even unfair terms could be beneficial to the contracting parties. In 2001, Stephen Ware suggested that requiring consumer protections in arbitration (requiring the availability of class proceedings, applying a universal cap on consumer fees without a case-by-case determination of whether the consumer can afford those fees, "requiring substantial discovery", or requiring businesses and consumers to arbitrate the same types of claims) would increase the costs of dispute resolution for the business, which would raise prices.