Originally from Dispute Resolution Journal

REMARKS BEFORE THE ITALlAN ARBITRATION ASSOCIATION

Celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of the Italian Arbitration Association, an institution to which the Ente Nazionale ldrocarburi (ENI) Group has given its full support for many years, is an opportunity to verify the usefulness of arbitration as a mechanism for the settlement of disputes in trade relations, as an alternative to the courts.

The business enterprise today operates in a social, economic, and legal framework far more complex than that prevailing in the early 1950s. The expansion of markets, the increasing national and international competition, the development of new technologies and new contractual arrangements, the imposition of more and more precise rules of behavior by the national and supranational legislators-these are the elements of the new competition in business which strongly affect corporate strategies.

As a consequence, the enterprise is compelled to adjust its goals to this changed framework, modifying the quality and variety of its actions and interventions in the market in which it operates. Such actions and interventions are directed increasingly toward the expansion of market outlets for its own production through the takeover of companies or the setting up of joint ventures; the availabil ity of raw materials through purchase under longterm contracts or investment in minerals exploration; the acquisition of new technologies for its own production processes; and the acquisition of a better critical size by merging its business, in whole or in part, with that of other operators.