Whither repeat players? Litigation experience and success in court: Evidence from Russian commercial courts

Abstract

This paper tests the party capability theory of Galanter (1974) using the universe of legal entities and their 9.8 million commercial disputes in Russia in 2012–2019. We find that repetitiveness is negatively associated with litigation success in general. We explain this by selection into litigation. Entities engaged in unfair business practices are repeatedly selected into disputes as respondents becoming repeat players in spite of themselves. We argue that repetitiveness should be decoupled from party capability and urge for conceptual revision of the notion of a repeat player in court.