Ninth Circuit Rejects LendingTree Arbitration Bid
A federal appeals court upheld a lower-court ruling that consumer claims over the Snowflake data breach can proceed in court rather than arbitration.
Updated on Nov. 5, 2026 in Cybersecurity
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit rejected a bid by LendingTree LLC and its subsidiary QuoteWizard.com LLC to send consumer claims tied to a Snowflake data breach to arbitration. The court issued an unsigned opinion holding that the companies' websites did not provide reasonably conspicuous notice of the terms of use containing the arbitration agreement.
Why it matters
The ruling means the consumer claims will remain in federal court rather than private arbitration, a forum that can limit discovery and public visibility. It also reinforces that companies relying on online terms of use must make arbitration clauses clearly visible to users.
The appellate ruling turned on the design of the companies' websites, which the court found did not display the arbitration terms with reasonable conspicuousness to users. The extraction does not include technical specifications of the breach itself or the scope of data compromised.
The players
LendingTree
LendingTree is an online lending marketplace that connects consumers with loan and financial product offers.
QuoteWizard
QuoteWizard is an online lead management platform that serves insurance agents and carriers.
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
The Ninth Circuit is the federal appellate court covering the western United States and is among the most influential in setting technology and consumer-privacy precedent.
The details
LendingTree and QuoteWizard sought to compel arbitration of claims arising from the Snowflake cloud-services data breach, arguing their online terms of use governed the dispute. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial, finding that under its precedents the plaintiffs were not bound because the terms were not reasonably conspicuously noticed on the sites.
Timeline
November 4, 2026: The Ninth Circuit issued its ruling affirming the denial of the arbitration motion.
The Tech Race
The decision applies the Ninth Circuit's established conspicuous-notice precedents on browsewrap and online terms to a large-scale cloud data breach. It places the case within a broader pattern of courts scrutinizing whether consumers actually agreed to arbitration clauses buried in website terms.
Consumers whose data was exposed in the Snowflake breach can pursue their claims in federal court rather than being sent to private arbitration. The ruling also signals that terms of use hidden on a website may not bind users who never clearly saw them.
The takeaway
Companies that want arbitration clauses enforced need to make them clearly visible at the point of sign-up, not tucked into links consumers never see. Consumers can check whether a service's terms are prominently displayed before assuming a dispute will be resolved outside of court.
Further reading
For more on how courts handle data breach disputes, see Cybersecurity coverage.
Source note: This article includes information reported by Bloomberglaw.
