Mandatory Arbitration of Intra-Corporate Disputes in Brazil: A Beacon of Light for Shareholder Litigation?

Abstract

We survey law firms, firms and institutional investors to better understand their preferred method of intra-corporate dispute resolution in Brazil. Consistent with a number of theories, we find that these organizations prefer arbitration to judicial claims as the method of intra-corporate dispute resolution. Our findings suggest that their choice of arbitration is based on the parties’ preferred ranking of objectives: quality of the decision; time to resolution; and costs. We find that parties choose to resolve disputes involving up to US$ 2.5 million through mediation or conciliation. We also find that arbitration and mediation or conciliation are almost equally preferred methods for intra-corporate dispute resolution involving values above US$ 2.5 million.