Law Commons^™

The Specificity Of International Arbitration: The Case For Faa Reform, William W. Park

Faculty Scholarship

If a pollster asked a random selection of Americans for a one-line verbal portrait of arbitration, common responses might include the following: (i) private litigation arising for construction and business disputes; (ii) a mechanism to resolve workplace tensions between management and labor; (iii) a process by which finance companies and stock brokers shield themselves from customer complaints; (iv) a way to level the playing field in deciding commercial controversies among companies from different parts of the world; (v) the way big corporations use NAFTA to escape regulation. To some extent all would be correct.'

Unfortunately, these different varieties of arbitration …

The Economics Of Litigation And Arbitration: An Application To Franchise Contracts, Keith N. Hylton, Christopher R. Drahozal

Faculty Scholarship

If we define the deterrence benefits from contract enforcement as avoided harms net of avoidance costs, we should expect contracting parties to choose the dispute resolution forum that provides the greatest difference between deterrence benefits and dispute resolution costs for every type of dispute. We apply this general framework to franchise contracts and conduct an empirical analysis of the determinants of arbitration agreements among franchising parties. Although it is obvious that contracting parties have an incentive to choose arbitration in order to reduce dispute-resolution costs, there have been no studies of the importance of deterrence concerns. We examine the deterrence …

Introduction To The Decennial Volume, George A. Bermann

Faculty Scholarship

Ten years ago, when the Columbia Journal of European Law began, the European Union was, as we tend to say, "in a different place" than it is today. The "internal market" or, as it was called, the "1992" program had very largely been achieved, validating the institutional changes wrought by the Single European Act and boosting incalculably the Community's credibility as a regional economic entity and potential international political force. The Member States had just successfully orchestrated what may fairly be regarded as their most ambitious Intergovernmental Conference to date, culminating in the Treaty of Maastricht. While the referendum road …

The New Face Of Investment Arbitration: Nafta Chapter 11, William W. Park

Faculty Scholarship

To protect American investment abroad, the United States traditionally endorsed arbitration as a preferred means to resolve disputes between investors and host countries. Yet a growing awareness of the down-side of arbitration, at least from the perspective of the party seeking the home-town justice of its own courts, has led to media attacks and legislative initiatives intended to hobble neutral international adjudication. This article suggests that assaults on investment arbitration are misguided, and may end up doing more harm than good. On balance, NAFTA arbitration serves as a positive force in the protection of legitimate economic expectations, enhancing the type …

International Commercial Dispute Resolution, William W. Park, Andrea K. Bjorklund, Jack J. Coe

Faculty Scholarship

A recent Court of Appeals decision has made it more difficult for judges in the United States to second-guess arbitrators in international cases. To understand the significance of the recent decision, one must remember that the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) has been interpreted to permit vacatur of awards in an international arbitration on the same grounds available in domestic cases. Thus, a litigant who is unhappy with an arbitrator's decision gets a chance to re-argue the case by alleging "manifest disregard of the law," a ground for judicial review created fifty years ago by Supreme Court dictum.