In Brennan v. Tremco Inc. (2001) 25 Cal.4th 310, the California Supreme Court concluded that "a contractual arbitration proceeding does not result in a favorable termination of a prior action." (Id., at p. 312.) Irrespective of whether the prior "action started in court or in arbitration, if it ends in contractual arbitration, that termination will not support a malicious prosecution action." (Id., at p. 314.) The court reasoned that "to permit an action for malicious prosecution to follow contractual arbitration would defeat the purpose of that arbitration. . . . Contractual arbitration is a relatively quick and inexpensive, but necessarily somewhat 'roughshod,' procedure that the parties may voluntarily choose to resolve their dispute and avoid further recourse to the courts." (Id., at p. 316.) "The parties who voluntarily choose arbitration generally expect and desire that the arbitration will end their dispute . . . ." (Id., at p. 315.) Thus, "contractual arbitration should not lead to additional litigation in the courts." (Id., at p. 317.) The California Supreme Court reiterated its reluctance to expand the tort: "Seeking to avoid 'an unending roundelay of litigation' , we have cautioned against creating or expanding derivative tort remedies, at least when the underlying litigation provided adequate remedies. 'In the past, we have favored remedying litigation-related misconduct by sanctions imposed within the underlying lawsuit rather than by creating new derivative torts.' For these reasons, we have said that the tort of malicious prosecution 'should not be expanded.' 'The most promising remedy for excessive litigation does not lie in an expansion of malicious prosecution liability. . . . In our view the better means of addressing the problem of unjustified litigation is through the adoption of measures facilitating the speedy resolution of the initial lawsuit and authorizing the imposition of sanctions for frivolous or delaying conduct within that first action itself, rather than through an expansion of the opportunities for initiating one or more additional rounds of malicious prosecution litigation after the first action has been concluded.' " ( Id. at pp. 314-315.)