Commercial conflict management

Any Corporate or Commercial agreement or contract may give rise to disagreement or dispute between the parties. Therefore it is important to prevent conflicts and facilitate correct and just solution of conflicts. Rules must be adapted to the situation, including the balance of power between the parties and their nationalities, the values involved and the nature of the agreement, for example whether it is a merger or acquisition, a deal, an international project contract, financing or a shareholders' agreement.

Consequently, it is important that all final legal provisions are chosen correctly when the agreements are concluded. This applies to the contractual provisions on choice of law and professional codes of practice, arbitration, ADR, mediation, venue, secrecy, choice of language, completeness of contract and document ranking etc. Various practices and various processes apply in the different codes of practices in different countries and different international fora, for example Uncitral, OECD, ICC, LCIA etc.

Participation in and a commercially advantageous outcome of negotiations on solution of a current dispute require knowledge of advantages, weaknesses and costs related to use of the rules agreed on to the effect that an optimal, commercial result may also be obtained on this background - through negotiation or complete or partial implementation of the possible dispute solution models. As part of this, it is necessary to asses the worst case scenario and tackle the rules in practice, including problems in respect of battle of forms, confidentiality, forum shopping, terms of reference, disclosure, guarantees, costs and recognition.