Originally from Dispute Resolution Journal

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A J. N. Judge, the Assistant Secretary-General of the Union of International Associations, recently wrote: "Within the next decade 75% of the world's productive capacity will be controlled by a small group of 300 multinational corporations." These huge business conglomerates already dominate much of the international commercial scene. For this reason, it is appropriate that we consider the suitability of the current facilities of the arbitration organization for resolving these disputes. In preparing this paper, I spoke with the General Counsels of a number of multinational companies. While this was far from a scientific sampling, the impressions I received may be of some interest.

To start with, it is well to recognize that multinational companies come in various sizes: big to huge. They also have variations in fonn. Some, such as IBM, have all operations everywhere wholly owned by the U.S. corporation. Stockholders may of course be of different nationalities and the stock of the company may be sold on different stock exchanges. But the company is a U.S. business and there is no effort made to disguise this fact.