Practice Management

CPR: "Corporate Attitudes Toward Arbitration"

By Dan Hull

Arbitration, and other forms of international ADR, are gaining acceptance. Many higher-end corporate clients, especially non-U.S. companies, do often "prefer" binding arbitration to court in complex commercial cases. But how "popular" is arbitration in the corporate world? If there is a "preference" for arbitration over court litigation, is it more in theory than in practice? Are sophisticated users of arbitration really satisfied with arbitration? How do comapnies view enforceability issues which, depending on the jurisdictions and treaties involved, can make an initially "successful" arbitration an endless, tortuous hell?

A relatively recent PriceWaterhouse study proclaimed that 86% of corporate users are "satisfied" with arbitration. "Say what?" is the reaction of GE in-house oil and gas litigation counsel Mike McIlwrath, who knows something about the subject. In Podcast 46 of CPR's International Dispute Negotiation series, McIlwrath, American-trained, based in Florence, Italy, and the host of the program, debates the PriceWaterhouse findings with Professor Loukas Mistelis, of University of London?s School of International Arbitration, Queen Mary School of Law, and one of the study's authors. The podcast, and interview, is here, with links to the studies themselves.

Full post as published by What About Clients? on October 24, 2008 (boomark / email).