LIBRARY

A

Agency Conflict

A friction arising from opposing interests and information asymmetries between a “principal” (e.g., shareholders, a Board, or a State entity) and an “agent” (e.g., corporate executives, local directors, or project managers) delegated to act on their behalf.
• Dispute Resolution Angle: Crucial for uncovering the underlying motives behind contractual deviations. When a local manager under pressure prioritizes regional project milestones or immediate cost reductions over strict compliance, they act on short-term misaligned incentives, creating major hidden liabilities for the principal.

Alternatives Generation

The distinct organizational phase of creating multiple viable, distinct paths of action before evaluating or selecting any single outcome.
• Dispute Resolution Angle: Tribunals look closely at this step to assess corporate due diligence. A process that rushes to a single pre-determined conclusion without formally exploring alternatives is highly vulnerable to accusations of recklessness, systemic bias, or gross negligence if the chosen path fails.

Anchoring

A cognitive flaw where decision-makers fixate disproportionately on the initial piece of data encountered—such as an opening price, a valuation estimate, or a claim figure—using it as an absolute reference point for all subsequent reasoning.
• Dispute Resolution Angle: In high-stakes commercial mediation, the opening claim or demand figure establishes an aggressive psychological boundary. An effective third-party neutral must systematically dismantle this unverified reference point to steer parties back toward objective, evidence-based metrics.

C

Cognitive Biases

Systematic, predictable deviations from rational judgment occurring because the human brain relies on subconscious mental shortcuts to process complex information rapidly.
• Dispute Resolution Angle: Awareness alone does not eliminate these flaws. In high-pressure commercial environments, recognizing that biases (such as overconfidence or confirmation bias) compromised a counterparty’s decision-making helps legal advisors reconstruct why a deal derailed and how to frame settlement strategies.

D

Decision Process

A disciplined, sequential, and repeatable methodology (typically consisting of establishing conditions, framing, generating alternatives, evaluating options, and choosing) designed to structure choices and mitigate individual errors.
• Dispute Resolution Angle: When corporate decisions are challenged in international arbitration, the standard of review shifts from the outcome to the process. A documented, compliant process serves as strong evidence of professional diligence and reasonable business judgment, even if the eventual outcome resulted in an operational loss.

Deliberation Techniques

Structured frameworks used during group debates—such as point-counterpoint or formal critical analysis—designed to channel professional disagreement productively and expose weaknesses before a final commitment is made.
• Dispute Resolution Angle: Multi-party negotiations often default to rapid de-escalation, which preserves surface harmony but leaves core issues unaddressed. Incorporating structured opposition techniques allows neutral facilitators to unearth hidden deal-breakers before agreements are signed.

G

Groupthink

A dysfunctional psychological phenomenon within highly cohesive teams where the pursuit of conformity, consensus, and conflict avoidance leads members to suppress dissenting viewpoints and ignore external risks.
• Dispute Resolution Angle: Groupthink explains why entire corporate boards occasionally sign off on obviously flawed, high-risk acquisitions. For an investigator or arbitrator, identifying signs of groupthink helps clarify whether structural governance failures or individual bad faith drove the compliance breakdown.

I

Implementation Gap

The operational disconnect between a high-level strategic decision made at the executive level and the actual execution of that decision by teams on the ground.
• Dispute Resolution Angle: Many complex commercial disputes stem from an implementation gap rather than an initial breach of contract. Identifying where executive intent detached from local field constraints is key to allocating liability between organizational mismanagement and genuine external hurdles.

O

OHADA Law

Organisation pour l’Harmonisation en Afrique du Droit des Affaires. A unified system of commercial, corporate, securities, and arbitration laws governing 17 African member states.
• Dispute Resolution Angle: Central to cross-border investment contentions in Sub-Saharan Africa. Its statutory frameworks frequently interface with corporate cultures where relational trust, informal consultation, and oral consensus carry significant weight, creating friction with strict Western documentation requirements.

Organisational Traps

Systemic, built-in flaws within a company’s structure, reporting lines, or incentives that consistently generate predictable decision errors, regardless of individual employee talent or good intentions.
• Dispute Resolution Angle: Reconstructing the organizational trap is essential during regulatory investigations or fraud assessments. What appears superficially as an isolated incident of employee misconduct is often the predictable result of an organizational structure operating exactly as designed.

P

Problem Framing

The cognitive and strategic act of setting the boundaries, baseline assumptions, and core terms of a problem before beginning any objective analysis.
• Dispute Resolution Angle: Initial framing pre-selects which variables matter and which solutions are achievable. In contentious environments, a party that frames an operational delay strictly as an intentional contractual breach excludes collaborative alignment options. Identifying competing frames allows practitioners to find settlement space that direct debate on the merits misses.

Process Legitimacy

The active perception by all stakeholders that a decision-making procedure was fair, inclusive, transparent, and consistent, regardless of whether the final outcome favors them.
• Dispute Resolution Angle: Process legitimacy is a binding requirement for sustainable outcomes. Settlements or arbitral awards built on a process perceived as flawed or procedurally unfair face immediate resistance, driving post-award enforcement disputes and long-term bad faith behavior.

R

Reference Class Forecasting

A benchmarking technique that mitigates human overconfidence by predicting the outcome of a planned project based on the actual, documented results of a statistically similar category of past projects.
• Dispute Resolution Angle: In construction and infrastructure disputes involving massive cost overruns or missed deadlines, tribunals use this concept to evaluate standard practices. It helps determine whether a contractor’s initial estimates were realistic or constituted reckless underestimation designed to secure the bid.

T

Tacit Acceptance

A behavioral and legal doctrine where a party demonstrates approval of an operational variance, modified timeline, or contractual shift through active conduct, non-objection, or prolonged silence, rather than written confirmation.
• Dispute Resolution Angle: A major flashpoint in complex commercial disputes. Arbitral tribunals must carefully analyze whether on-site behavior and joint project progression operate as a binding waiver of formal contractual amendment clauses (invoking *Estoppel* dynamics).