The Intesa Sanpaolo Center for Transnational Litigation, Arbitration, and Commercial Law is glad to invite you to a talk by Pedro J. Martinez-Fraga on his book “Settlement and Risk Assessment in International Commercial Arbitration” just published by Cambridge University Press.
Efficiency is often described as the bedrock principle of international commercial arbitration, yet fewer than 40 per cent of international commercial arbitrations settle, compared to roughly 90 per cent of cases in US litigation. Pedro will argue that arbitration has delivered only a narrow “process efficiency”, producing binding and enforceable awards, while neglecting the broader efficiency that settlement represents. In his view, the root cause lies in a self-disclosure and evidentiary framework that leaves parties unable to identify, quantify and communicate risk. He will propose objective evidentiary standards for relevance, materiality, and weight, and make the case for embracing settlement as an essential expression of party autonomy and as vital to the survival of the field.
Few people are better placed to make this argument. Pedro, Partner and Global Co-leader of International Arbitration at Bryan Cave Paisner Leighton, and an adjunct at NYU School of Law for the past 15 years, has served as lead counsel to eleven sovereign States, has authored more than fifty articles and twelve books on public and private international law, delivered the 2023 Special Course on Private International Law at The Hague Academy of International Law, and was appointed by President Barack Obama to the ICSID Panel of Conciliators. He is Vice President of the American Society of International Law, sits on the Singapore International Arbitration Centre Panel of Arbitrators, and has been an Adjunct Professor at NYU School of Law for the past fifteen years.
For more information, please see the attached flyer.