A lawsuit alleging an online arbitration platform was secretly built to favor merchant cash advance lenders
New York Attorney General Letitia James sued Rapid Ruling, an online arbitration platform, and its founders Zachary Meyer and Andrew Sachs, in June 2026, alleging the platform was marketed as a neutral, independent forum for resolving merchant cash advance disputes while secretly coordinated with MCA companies that helped draft its rules. The complaint alleges that in roughly 3,000 arbitrations run through the platform since its 2019 founding, 97% proceeded without the small business defendant appearing, and the platform ruled for the lender in nearly all of those cases. The lawsuit is ongoing and unresolved.
- Year
- 2026
- Where
- United States
- Outcome
- Ongoing
- Victims
- Not stated in the sources
- Schemes
- Merchant cash advance fraud
- Last reviewed
- 2026-09-25
The facts, as recorded
- The complaint, filed June 8, 2026, names Rapid Ruling, an online arbitration platform founded in 2019, and its founders Zachary Meyer and Andrew Sachs, as defendants.
- The Attorney General alleges Rapid Ruling was marketed to small businesses and courts as a neutral, independent arbitration forum, while its rules were allegedly drafted in secret coordination with the merchant cash advance companies whose disputes it was arbitrating.
- The complaint alleges arbitration clauses routing disputes to Rapid Ruling were buried in MCA loan agreements, and that the arbitrators presented as 'independent' and 'impartial' were, in practice, biased toward the MCA companies.
- Of roughly 3,000 arbitrations the complaint says ran through the platform, 97% proceeded without the small business defendant appearing, and the Attorney General alleges MCA companies won nearly all of those cases, with arbitrators regularly rejecting the business defenses that were raised.
- The lawsuit follows, and the complaint references, the Attorney General's prior enforcement history in this area, including the January 2025 $1 billion settlement with the Yellowstone Capital network and a September 2023 court order against Richmond Capital Group, Ram Capital Funding and Viceroy Capital Funding.
- Attorney General Letitia James said small businesses are the backbone of the state's economy and called the arbitration scheme "shameful."
Why this case matters
Every other documented case on this page targets an MCA lender directly. This one targets the dispute process a merchant cash advance contract routes a business into after a lender alleges default, the stage of the scheme that is supposed to be the business’s last chance for a fair hearing before a judgment is enforced. If the allegations here are accurate, that stage had already been captured by the same industry it was supposed to referee.
What “neutral” allegedly meant in practice
The complaint’s core allegation is not that Rapid Ruling was slow or informal; it’s that the platform was marketed as independent while its own rules were allegedly written with input from the MCA companies whose cases it decided. A 97% no-appearance rate, on its own, could describe many kinds of default proceedings. What makes this case distinct is the Attorney General’s allegation that this was by design, not incidental, a forum built to make it easy for a lender to win when a small business didn’t, or couldn’t, show up.
Why it follows the Yellowstone and Richmond Capital cases
The complaint explicitly ties this case to the Attorney General’s earlier actions against Yellowstone Capital and Richmond Capital Group’s network, both documented elsewhere on this page. Read together, the three cases describe an escalating pattern: lenders sued over the loan terms themselves, then sued again over the confession-of-judgment enforcement mechanism, and now, in this case, over the arbitration process some contracts substituted for a court judgment.
The caveat
This case was filed in June 2026 and remains unresolved at the time this page was last reviewed. Every factual claim above, the secret coordination with MCA companies, the biased arbitration rules, the 97% no-appearance statistic, and the near-uniform outcomes for lenders, is an allegation in the Attorney General’s complaint, not a finding by a court. Rapid Ruling, Zachary Meyer and Andrew Sachs have not been found liable for any of this conduct, and are presumed to have a defense they have not yet had the opportunity to present in court.
Sources
- Attorney General James Sues Sham Arbitration Service Created to Help Predatory Lenders. Office of the New York State Attorney General. Accessed 2026-09-25. Supports: All facts in this case file: the Rapid Ruling defendants, the June 8, 2026 filing date, the 2019 founding date, the secret coordination allegation, the buried arbitration clause allegation, the 97% no-appearance statistic, the near-uniform lender win rate, the references to the Attorney General's prior Yellowstone and Richmond Capital enforcement actions, and the Attorney General James quote.