Arbitration As An Instrument Of Corporate Dominance: A Shield Against Accountability?
- IJLLR Journal
- 39 minutes ago
- 1 min read
Farhat Sajad, B.Com., CS (Executive) Candidate, LL.B. Candidate, School of Legal Studies, CMR University
ABSTRACT
Originally conceived as a quick and flexible alternative to litigation, arbitration has turned out to be increasingly an instrument of corporate dominance. Corporations have translated arbitration into a shield against public accountability and legal scrutiny by means of compulsory arbitration clauses, selective arbitrator appointments, and strident confidentiality provisions. Such a paper is critical to arbitration and proves how it falls frequently under the rhetoric of power imbalances, thereby curbing access to justice for consumers, employees, and small businesses. The mandatory arbitration clauses limit the ability of the weaker parties to redress their grievances before open courts, while repeated appointments of arbitrators inject implicit bias in favor of powerful corporations. Moreover, confidentiality in arbitration proceedings bars the establishment of potential legal precedents and hides corporate misbehaviours from public view. In consumer and employment disputes, this balance would significantly destroy procedural fairness, reducing arbitration to a tool for preserving the corporate interest. It critiques mechanisms investor-state arbitration provisions create by corporations against the former public policies adopted to provide an efficient means, henceforth gaining more and better-quality control while avoiding all elements of democratic values in deciding who the right policy- makers ought to be. To a close end, this paper would offer certain reform mechanisms needed to achieve equilibrium between stronger states' wilful arbitral exercises on their subordinates' vital needs that undermine equality.
