Whether the Federal Arbitration Act preempts a state contract law rule that requires arbitration provisions to have separate, independent consideration distinct from the underlying contract exchange

No question identified. : APPLICATION FOR EXTENSION OF TIME Under this Court’s Rule 13.5, Applicant Genesis Financial Solutions, Inc. respectfully requests a 29-day extension of time within which to file a petition for a writ of certiorari, up to and including September 27, 2025. JUDGMENT FOR WHICH REVIEW IS SOUGHT The judgment for which review is sought is Ford v. Genesis Financial Solutions, No. 24-1341 (4th Cir. May 30, 2025) (attached as Exhibit 1). JURISDICTION The Court will have jurisdiction over any timely petition under 28 U.S.C. § 1254(1). The Fourth Circuit issued its judgment on May 30, 2025, and Applicant subsequently filed an untimely petition for rehearing en banc, which was rejected. See Exhibit 2. Thus, a petition to this Court is currently due by August 28, 2025. As explained below, counsel submits that extraordinary undersigned appellate counsel was retained only the evening before this application was filed, and sought an extension as soon as reasonably practicable under the seeking this extension less than 10 days before the current due date. REASONS JUSTIFYING AN EXTENSION OF TIME 1. Counsel is well aware of this Court’s rules directing that applications for extensions of time be filed more than 10 days before a petition would be due, absent extraordinary circumstances. Counsel submits that such extraordinary circumstances are present here, and that seeking an extension any earlier would not have been feasible. Undersigned counsel was not involved in the proceedings before the district court or the court of appeals, where Applicant was represented by different counsel. Instead, counsel at Sidley Austin LLP was not retained in connection with this matter until the evening of August 20, 2025, which is also when Applicant determined to seek certiorari. As soon as practicable upon retention, counsel prepared and filed this application for an extension of time. Finally, Respondents would not be prejudiced by the extension requested here. 2. The brief extension requested here is especially warranted because this case presents exceptionally important questions about the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”) on which the Fourth Circuit remains an outlier from every other circuit that has addressed these questions. The FAA preempts unfavorable “legal rules that ‘apply only to arbitration.” Kindred Nursing Ctrs. Ltd. P’ship v. Clark, 581 U.S. 246, 251 (2017) (quoting AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion, 563 U.S. 333, 339 (2011)). In this case, adhering to its decision from a few weeks earlier in Johnson v. Continental Finance Co., 131 F.4th 169 (4th Cir. 2025), the Fourth Circuit violated the FAA’s equal-treatment principle and deepened a split with other courts of appeals by endorsing a rule of Maryland contract law that holds arbitration provisions to a higher consideration standard than any other contractual term. Worse, the Fourth Circuit purported to do so based on a manifest misconstruction of this Court’s decision in Prima Paint Corp. v. Flood & Conklin Manufacturing Co., 388 U.S. 395 (1967), which plainly does not require such unequal treatment. The Maryland rule here impermissibly discriminates against arbitration. Contrary to standard rule that a contract’s terms may each draw adequate consid eration from the same underlying exchange between parties—e.g., one party’s payment for the other’s services—Maryland wrongly applies a more-demanding rule to arbitration provisions, dictating that they cannot draw consideration from the “underlying” exchange of payment for services. Instead, the arbitration provisions must contain their own independent exchange of mutual “promises to arbitrate.” Cheek v. United Healthcare of Mid-Atl., Inc., 835 A.2d 656, 665 (Md. 2003). Based on that rule, and mistakenly believing itself to be following Prima Paint, the Fourth Circuit invalidated arbitration provisions within credit card agreements that were supported by consideration that would be considered in any other context, for any