Events

Prof. Minyuan Zhao
Associate Professor of Strategy
Olin Business School
Washington University in St. Louis

Multinational enterprises (MNEs) often engage in “forum shopping,” i.e., choosing courts that offer a good chance of winning while delivering an effective message to potential infringers worldwide. With heightened geopolitical tensions, however, litigation outcomes are often about the identities of the litigants rather than the merits of the cases, compromising their effectiveness in global deterrence. Thus, for firms originating from one antagonist country and suing competitors from the other, impartial courts immune from political pressures are particularly appealing. Using a large sample of global patent litigation cases, we find supportive evidence that the importance of court impartiality in firms’ litigation location decisions is enhanced when the geopolitical tension between litigants’ home countries increases, and the effect is weaker for industries with country-specific regulatory bodies.