A business dispute is the consequence of a failure, and our view is that nobody comes out of one a winner. The great majority of them can be avoided, provided they are anticipated during negotiation and drafting rather than discovered afterward.
That is where most of our work on this subject actually happens: in the arbitration clause, at the moment the contract is signed and nobody expects to need it.
When a dispute does arise
Arbitration and alternative dispute resolution resolve a dispute outside the court system. Arbitration produces a decision the parties have agreed in advance to treat as final and binding. Mediation, conciliation, and negotiation are less formal, more flexible, and rely on a neutral third party to restore a conversation that has stopped.
In a cross-border context, the framework is set by the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration and by the New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, which govern how agreements and awards are recognized from one jurisdiction to another.
Richard Marcon has practiced and advocated out-of-court dispute resolution for more than two decades. He created and taught Arbitration and Alternative Dispute Resolution in an International Context for the Mediterranean and Middle East campus of Sciences Po Paris.
What this is not
We do not practice litigation, and we do not represent clients before the courts. This work sits upstream of a dispute, or outside the courtroom once one exists.