You have to be a bit careful with things like this. There is an implicit assumption that this is a pure one way play. In other words that there is no recompense

You have to be a bit careful with things like this. There is an implicit assumption that this is a pure one way play. In other words that there is no recompense for waiving the right to court arbitration. Now, I don't happen to know the ins and outs of the pre-crash Bear contracts for traders, but from my experience of similar contracts in similar institutions, I tended to get amply compensated for the various things I waived my rights to. There are cases, mine included, where both parties signed a contract with full knowledge and were able to walk away if they were unhappy. I'm going to guess that, as much as we all regularly feel sorry for the plight of investment bankers, this was likely true in this case too. That's not to say I have any issue with employee protection in general. It's hugely important. But there are most definitely cases where the relationship is not necessarily one sided.