Cite as: 531 U. S. 79 (2000)
Opinion of the Court
recognized, "we lack . . . information about how claimants fare under Green Tree's arbitration clause." 178 F. 3d, at 1158. The record reveals only the arbitration agreement's silence on the subject, and that fact alone is plainly insufficient to render it unenforceable. The "risk" that Randolph will be saddled with prohibitive costs is too speculative to justify the invalidation of an arbitration agreement.
To invalidate the agreement on that basis would undermine the "liberal federal policy favoring arbitration agreements." Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital, 460 U. S., at 24. It would also conflict with our prior holdings that the party resisting arbitration bears the burden of proving that the claims at issue are unsuitable for arbitration. See Gilmer, supra, at 26; McMahon, supra, at 227. We have
sion of costs relied entirely on unfounded assumptions. She stated that "[f]or the purposes of this discussion, we will assume filing with the [American Arbitration Association], the filing fee is $500 for claims under $10,000 and this does not include the cost of the arbitrator or administrative fees." Randolph relied on, and attached as an exhibit, what appears to be informational material from the American Arbitration Association that does not discuss the amount of filing fees. She then noted: "[The American Arbitration Association] further cites $700 per day as the average arbitrator's fee." For this proposition she cited an article in the Daily Labor Report, February 15, 1996, published by the Bureau of National Affairs, entitled Labor Lawyers at ABA Session Debate Role of American Arbitration Association. Plaintiff's Motion for Reconsideration, Record Doc. No. 53, pp. 8-9. The article contains a stray statement by an association executive that the average arbitral fee is $700 per day. Randolph plainly failed to make any factual showing that the American Arbitration Association would conduct the arbitration, or that, if it did, she would be charged the filing fee or arbitrator's fee that she identified. These unsupported statements provide no basis on which to ascertain the actual costs and fees to which she would be subject in arbitration.
In this Court, Randolph's brief lists fees incurred in cases involving other arbitrations as reflected in opinions of other Courts of Appeals, while petitioners' counsel states that arbitration fees are frequently waived by petitioners. None of this information affords a sufficient basis for concluding that Randolph would in fact have incurred substantial costs in the event her claim went to arbitration.
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