Safety Net

If you're involved in a trade dispute, your remedies are few. Lawsuits are expensive, and in recent years, arbitration has become almost as costly. That's why mediation is fast becoming the method of choice to resolve international business disputes.

To help businesses settle trade tiffs, the Greater Dallas Chamber of Commerce and the Dallas Bar Association got together to form the first-ever International Mediation Center, which opened earlier this year.

"Mediation is becoming extremely popular throughout this country," says Sid Stahl, a mediator in private practice and a member of the center's board of directors. It helps that NAFTA encourages mediation of business and commercial disputes.

Entrepreneurial disagreements often go unresolved, Stahl says, because agreeing on a settlement is so difficult, particularly when the parties are from different countries. To make things easier, the International Mediation Center handles all the arrangements for a face-to-face meeting, which Stahl believes is the best way to resolve a dispute. The meeting can be held either at the Dallas site or at a location convenient to both parties.

Stahl says small-business owners who use the center's services have the most to gain-more than owners of medium-sized or large companies. "Small businesses will reap a larger benefit," he explains, "because they need to get disputes resolved sooner and can least afford the expense of litigation."

This article was originally published in the July 1996 print edition of Entrepreneur with the headline: Safety Net.