Fourth and Goal: How The 2011 NFL Season Was Saved

Introduction: The Pre-Game Show

Overview of the NFL Dispute

The National Football League (“NFL”) labor dispute lasted over 130 days from March of 2011 to the end of July 2011 (although the actual dispute had been growing since 2006) and nearly prevented the 2011 NFL season from occurring.   The NFL season was nearly prevented because the owners, not the players, went on strike.  Consequently, the owners’ strike prevented the players from meeting as a team, using any team owned facilities for games or practice, and receiving any salaries or benefits from the team (other than money guaranteed through television contracts, although the television contracts would have been breached had a season not occurred).   Thus, the possibility of replacement players (which would be very difficult due to the size of NFL teams) or replacement teams (such as bringing in teams from Canada or Europe) was not an option because the owners of the teams were refusing to allow the NFL season to proceed without a new labor agreement reached between the players and the owners.

Accordingly, because the dispute was between the team owners and their employees (the players, collectively National Football League Players Association “NFLPA,” and following decertification, the players individually), the controversy was a labor dispute, which is “any controversy concerning terms or conditions of employment, or concerning the association or representation of persons in negotiating, fixing, maintaining, changing, or seeking to arrange terms or conditions of employment, regardless of whether or not the disputants stand in the proximate relation of employer and employee.” Moreover, the dispute regarded the terms and conditions of the owners and players 2006 collective bargaining agreement (“CBA”).  From a broad perspective, the players wished to maintain the agreement reached in the 2006 agreement (with aspirations to increase health and retirement benefits) and the owners wanted to earn more overall profit by changing certain terms and conditions.

Specifically, the “heart” of the controversy stems from revenue sharing.  The NFL teams, before paying the players, vendors, healthcare employees, and other obligations earn total revenue of roughly $9 billion per season.   The issue to what the size of the pie is to divide is disputed, as the “owners proposed taking $2 billion off the top of the revenue (to pay for yearly expenses) as opposed to their current $1 billion (under the 2006 CBA), thus shrinking the pie.”   Consequently, “the smaller the pie, the more contentious the debate to divide it, unless the players are satisfied with a chunk being taken out before anyone starts slicing it.” Accordingly, the next revenue issue is the percentage of the total pie each side to the dispute receives. Under the 2006 CBA, revenue sharing favors the players, as it is a sixty to forty split, meaning that the players through salaries and benefits receive 60% of the revenue and the owners earn 40% of the revenue.  As the owners operate a business, they wish to increase their profit and, thus, throughout the negotiations and mediations asked for a larger percentage of the revenue.  Exact figures utilized throughout the process are debated, however, the owners wanted to obtain between 47% to 55% of the total revenue, and eventually received 52%.

Money, although the overarching contention, was not the only interest sought or negotiated for throughout the process.  As with many negotiations and mediations, underlying issues are often very important to each side, and the NFL labor dispute was no exception.  First, the players or collectively, the NFLPA, wanted to view the financial information of the owners regarding the teams and their expenses.  Specifically, the owners argued that their profits were declining and their expenses were increasing; however, they did not want to share their financial information relating to their expenditures.  Conversely, the players wanted to analyze the expenses to uncover the extent to which the owners’ statements were accurate.   (Importantly, as the dispute took place on the negotiation table and with federal court mediators, full discovery was not implemented.  However, after the NFLPA decertified, and individual anti-trust suits were filed, discovery may have compelled the information to come forward if an agreement had not been reached).

Furthermore, the players wanted an agreement that addressed player safety.  Importantly, the NFLPA wanted more thorough concussion assistance and mandatory “rest” periods when one is diagnosed with a concussion.  Also, the NFLPA sought additional healthcare benefits post retirement and collective fund pools to help with players’ medical expenses who have already retired.   The owners, though recognizing the incredible importance of player safety, pushed for a longer season (an eighteen as opposed to a sixteen game season), which would undoubtedly increase overall profit, but simply stated, more games equates to an increased likelihood of injury.

The NFL owners also proposed an 18% decrease in the salary cap, which was a highly contested term, “because the less teams are allowed to spend on players, the less the players can actually get paid.”  The salary cap proposal was much more likely a term proposed in order to introduce more favorable bargaining room for the owners, as specific owners, such as Jerry Jones, openly endorsed a larger salary cap in the past.  Additionally, the owners proposed a rookie wage scale to prevent rookies from making large guaranteed money when they had not proven themselves at the NFL level.  However, the players did not want to commit themselves to a scale and, thus, hinder their earning potential.

Importantly, though hardly mentioned throughout the press, one of the most “important” points in reaching a new agreement was longevity because “no one wants a Band-Aid deal that gets the NFL, the NFLPA, and the fans back into this position in another five years.”   Therefore, although several highly contested issues were placed on the bargaining table, a fair deal that spans years was the ultimate goal.

This paper analyzes the mediations that took place throughout the NFL labor dispute, exploring the legal issues and failed negotiations, and how the mediators were able to broker a strong deal in light of the incredibly difficult impasses. Part I provides a brief overview of what led to the 2011 dispute.  Part II explores relevant labor law involved in collective bargaining and the laws interaction with cooperative negotiation.  Part III evaluates the mediation at different stages in the dispute, the changing nature of the players’ positions, and the use of the courts by the players and owners to illustrate the impasses the mediators were able to move beyond.  Part IV analyzes the mediations through the Hawaii Model illustrating the effectiveness of the mediator in overcoming the difficulties both parties created in trying to finalize an agreement.

Part I: The Kickoff To The Dispute

The Actions That Led To The 2011 Lockout And The 2006 CBA

The Previous NFL CBA was negotiated and agreed to in 2006.   Based on a provision in the agreement, the owners chose to opt out of the 2006 CBA in 2008.   Furthermore, the impending labor dispute was expected following the owners decision to opt out of the agreement in 2008 because the 2006 CBA expired on March 11, 2011.   Thus, the starting point of the 2011 labor dispute arose from the 2006 CBA, but first, in order to fully understand the terms and role of the CBA, a brief description of the NFL revenue sharing system is explored before addressing the 2006 CBA.

In the beginning of the 1960s, NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle launched an era of NFL team collectivism appropriately titled “league think.”  Rozelle’s idea behind league think was that the owners, by pooling together their resources and sharing their profits, would create an NFL that as a “whole [would be] much more valuable than the sum of its parts.”   Rozelle’s idea came to fruition; each owner pooled their local broadcasting rights together and sold them as a national package.   The revenues obtained from the national packages were then equally divided amongst each individual NFL team.   The league think system lasted for nearly forty years, however, beginning in the 1990’s, large market teams in an effort to gain a financial advantage over competing teams began bringing in additional unshared revenue entitled local revenue.   Local revenue is revenue directly tied to the team’s stadium, merchandise sales, and to a small extent, the proportion of their local television coverage.   For example, Dallas Cowboy owner Jerry Jones directly challenged the collective revenue procedure of the league by entering into contracts with Nike and Pepsi juxtaposed against the leagues sponsorship with Reebok and Coca Cola.   As a result, a two tiered revenue system has emerged in the NFL.  On one hand, the league still engages in league think which accounts for over $5 billion to be divided amongst the teams, but individual teams can engage in local sponsorships, such as Pepsi, Nike, and Ford like the Dallas Cowboys, acquiring unshared revenue. The result has created a gap between NFL teams, for example, the Dallas Cowboys are valued at $1.85 billion and the Washington Redskins are valued at $1.55 billion while the Oakland Raiders are valued at $761 million and the Jacksonville Jaguars are valued at $725 million.

The CBA does not directly address the unshared profits; the CBA does include the television deals covering the rights to broadcast NFL games and the gate receipts generated by stadium attendance, which amounts to the majority of the total revenue shared among the individual NFL teams.  However, in creating the 2006 CBA, the higher revenue teams sacrificed in order to make the deal work by attributing more money to the collective pool than the lower income teams- “under the new deal, the bottom [seventeen] teams in revenue will not contribute to the pool, which will be funded with the top five teams contributing the most; the second five less; and the third five less than them.”  Additionally, the 2006 CBA increased the overall revenue sharing pool from $40 million to $100 annually.   According to the Washington Redskins owner, the deal reached with all the owners was a “win-win,” however, for fear of missing out on the 2007 football season, the entire 2006 CBA was reached in forty-five minutes.

Although the 2006 CBA “seemingly” created a sense of unanimity among the owners, the quickness of the deal and the strength of the player’s representation, Gene Upshaw, resulted in the players obtaining the upper hand in the negotiations.  Robert Kraft, owner of the Patriots, stated that “I’d want him (referring to Upshaw) to represent my side in labor negotiations. The players should be thanking him. Actually, they should be genuflecting.”   Upshaw’s hard-nosed tactics led to the players obtaining 60% of the revenue share from league think revenues.   Furthermore, the deal instantly raised the salary cap by $7.5 million, which increased player salary.  Additionally, the deal fixed labor costs through 2011, which provided stability to the increased player salaries.   Consequently, the 2006 CBA added a “billion dollars to the players’ pool in return for labor peace” and provided additional cap room to sign unsigned players, while effectively depleting the owners ability to utilize a larger portion of their share to pay for everyday and increased costs of running their teams.   After two years of what the owners claim amounted to increased pay to players, decreased pay to owners, and increased costs to run the teams, in 2008, the NFL owners opted out of the agreement.  In March of 2011, the 2006 CBA expired, and the owners came to the bargaining table to negotiate and redraw a CBA agreement that “works for both sides.”

Part II: First and Ten

Labor Bargaining Laws

The National Labor Relations Act (the “NLRA”) is the guidepost by which all collective bargaining exists.   The purpose of the NLRA is to confer a duty on the parties to bargain collectively in good faith: <

For the purposes of this section, to bargain collectively in the performance of the mutual obligation of the employer and the representative of the employees to meet at reasonable times and confer in good faith with respect to wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment, or the negotiation of an agreement . . . and the execution of a written contract incorporating any agreement reached if requested by either party, but such obligation does not compel either party to agree to a proposal or require the making of a concession . . . .

Additionally, the NLRA states that unfair labor practice occurs when an employer refuses to bargain collectively with the representation of their employees and likewise, that a labor organization or its agent’s refusal to bargain collectively with the employer is grounds for unfair labor practice.

The obligation to meet, confer, and negotiate is not specifically defined by the NLRA, but based on case law, the obligations generally amount to meeting and negotiating in a reasonable amount of time with an intention of reaching an agreement.  In National Labor Relations Board v. Highland Park Manufacturing Co., 110 F.2d 632 (4th Cir. 1940), the union was negotiation a draft proposal of a labor agreement with management, however, the second negotiation session abruptly ended because the president of the company came down with an “illness,” and left the vice president to oversee the rest of the negotiations.  The vice president met with the union twice and then completely stopped negotiation.   The Fourth Circuit Court stated that the acts of the company towards the union “when taken collectively” amounted to a refusal to collectively bargain as the employer had “no intent of reaching an agreement with the union.”   The court held that the overarching principle of collective bargaining is not necessarily reaching an accord, but the desire to form an agreement.

Furthermore, under the NLRA, collective bargaining must occur in good faith.  To bargain in good faith means employer and employee organization must meet and confer with an open mind and with the intent of reaching an agreement.   Accordingly, in ascertaining whether either party bargained in good faith involves evaluating each party’s subjective state of mind or uncovering if there exists a motive or inclination to participate in sincere negotiations with the intent to settle problems and ultimately reaching an agreement.

The duty of good faith may be breached if a party refuses to furnish information.  The National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) has found over and over again that in order for either party to make informed decisions and partake in effective collective bargaining, there exists a duty to provide information.   Consequently, parties are “required to furnish the other side with additional information so as to understand each other’s position.”   Relevant to the NFL CBA dispute is the NFLPA’s request for the NFL owners to furnish financial information.  However, in requesting financial documents there is a large distinction between an inability to pay and a competitive disadvantage for the employees.  According to the Supreme Court, financial information throughout the collective bargaining process only needs to be turned over to the other side if the employer cannot financially support the union’s demands for wages or benefits.   Hence, financial records must be turned over if an employer is claiming the inability to pay.

Overall, the collective bargaining process is founded on the cooperative negotiation process.   This process encourages negotiators to work with their opponents; they use reasonable opening offers, show good faith, and initiate the exchange of mutual concessions.  They seek a fair and just settlement and seek to understand each other’s interests.  Although both parties intend to collectively bargain to reach a mutually acceptable, “win-win” outcome, each side may utilize economic pressure on the other side to push forth their positions.  There are several strategies of economic pressure.  First is the lockout, as “there is nothing in the [NLRA] which would imply that the right to strike carries with it the right exclusively to determine the timing and duration of all work stoppages include the lockout.”   Second is the unfair practice strike, because based on labor law, striking employees must be reinstated to their previous employment positions upon the conclusion of the unfair labor practice strike.   Third is the overall economic strike, where an owner/employer is allowed to hire and fire replacements and/or employees and, may, with no fear of legal recourse, “refuse requests for reinstatement from a striker who was replaced during a strike.”   Ultimately, the collective bargaining process may involve economic pressure, which ultimately influences each sides negotiation positions, and for example, the disclosure of specific financial records throughout the process.  Hence, both parties to a collective bargain are required to act in good faith, but that does not remove strategy and pressure, which may result in various impasses throughout the process.

Part III: Third and Long

Mediations and Impasse

Part III A: Mediation Prior to the Official Lockout

            Following the decision of the NFL owners to opt out of the 2006 CBA in May of 2008, Gene Upshaw, the Executive Director of the NFLPA and the players’ representative who was instrumental in reaching the 2006 CBA passed away.  In March of 2009, the NFLPA elected attorney DeMaurice Smith to a three year term to succeed Gene Upshaw as the union’s executive director.   Finally, on February 18, 2011, the NFL and NFLPA begin federal mediation under the guidance of George Cohen at the Washington, D.C. headquarters of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Services.

The NFL labor dispute was more than just about the money- the owners were dependent on the players to take the field and the players were dependent on the owners to provide the facilities, salary, and platform for them to play to football.  Ultimately, the dependent relationship between the NFLPA and the NFL will continue into the future as long as the players play football and the owners own football teams.  However, the initial mediation period stemming from February 2011 to March 11, 2011 was comprised of sequential bargaining focusing only on money and no other issues such as player health and penalties for player misbehavior or openly understanding that this negotiation was only one aspect of a mutually dependent relationship that will last for the long, foreseeable future.

The initial mediation is characterized by money: “only the almighty dollar drives the NFL,” and “both sides argued bitterly for money, completely forgetting their passion for the game of football.”   However, mediation is largely based on the concept of interests.  The concept is that the “important needs or concerns of a party are often obscured beneath an emotionally charged and misleading array of concepts which demonize the opposition, and justify one’s own notion of reality.”   Consequently, the only issue on the table was revenue sharing, but instead of calmly reaching an agreement, Mr. Cohen struggled to reach underlying issues while trying to deal with the demonizing of the opposition: for example, Carolina Panthers owner Jerry Richardson openly mocked the NFLPA and he was incredibly “stubborn” and it proved difficult to facilitate meaningful discussions with him.   Ultimately, the extreme stance taken by, for example Jerry Richardson, translated “into a position in the negotiation, usually expressed in the form of great conviction about the righteousness of one’s cause, and relative inflexibility (real or feigned) in the terms of the negotiation.”   Hence, Mr. Cohen openly struggled moving the owners and players away from the 2006 CBA agreement and the money terms, which ideally, mediation “gets beyond positional bargaining, by exploring what was unsatisfactory in a party’s past experience and what that party needs in the future (i.e. interests).”  Thus, as mediation started, the core impasse, money, was the only focus, and the additional interests, which potentially can facilitate finding an agreement on the revenue issues was left on the sideline.

Similarly, the original mediation faltered and could not reach a conclusion because without agreeing to the money, the other issues were not discussed.  Consequently, in a negotiation with several issues at play, sequential bargaining limits the effectiveness of a mediator.  Specifically, by independently discussing each issue, “negotiators cannot fashion win-win trade-offs among issues.”   No room was left for the mediator to uncover tradeoffs because only revenue was on the table- the owners refused to accept less than 50% of the revenue share and demanded two billion dollars to be taken off the top of the revenue pie to pay for expenses, while the NFLPA were committed to the past, maintaining the revenue division established in the 2006 CBA.   Therefore, Mr. Cohen’s sequential mediation strategy or his inability to control the parties resulted in a deadlock.

Placing the blame on the mediator is unfair, as Mr. Cohen was thrust into a position of uncooperative sides, with large egos, and deep pockets refusing to budge on their positions.  Ergo, the ego and positional stances of the parties became a difficult impasse to overcome.  The positional bargaining approach taken by the NFLPA (wanted to revert to the 2006 CBA) and the owners (wanted over 50% of the revenue share and an additional $1billion sliced off of the pie) is that it reinforces egocentrism which is amplified when two sophisticated and wealthy sides used to having control are pitted against one another.  Thus, the positions each party take become part of their self-concepts, “making any opposition an ego threat”   Here, the dispute was between “millionaires fighting billionaires.” The millionaires, the athletes and their representation, were used to being paraded around and controlling the situations they were in, while the owners, billionaire businessmen, viewed the players (which is true) as their employees, but again, these are not ordinary egos of employees, many of them are multi-millionaires. As heads continued to clash over the money dispute, each stab was viewed as a personal attack.   Consequently, the egos created an impasse, in that a successful mediation required moving beyond each parties’ ego and looking into the future and the continued success of the NFL.

Part III B: Changing Bargaining Positions and Bad Faith Allegations

The initial mediation ended after the parties could not reach an agreement on March 11, 2011 when the NFLPA rejected the owner’s final proposal, which resulted in decertifying the union and officially beginning the NFL lockout.  The union decertification was significant because the decertification allowed individual players to immediately file antitrust lawsuits.   The players filed an antitrust suit naming Tom Brady, quarterback of the New England Patriots, as the named party.  However, the Eight Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the owners, granting a permanent stay of the district court’s order of a permanent stay of Judge Nelson’s injunction that lifted the lockout.   Consequently, the ruling added strength to the players’ side of the negotiation table because although the lockout remained partially intact, the court found that the lockout may not apply to rookies and players without contracts.

Additionally, the owners attempted to garner additional power by entering into a contract with television networks for $4 billion even if the NFL season fails to take place. However, the district court ruled that the television contracts violated the collective bargaining agreement by creating a $4 billion lockout insurance fund.   Consequently, the “ruling grant[ed] considerable leverage to the players in [the] labor talks.”   Furthermore, the owners and players accused the other of collectively bargaining in bad faith (during the negotiations when the players were still certified as a union). The NFLPA insisted that the owners’ failure to release their financial statements amounted to bad faith.  However, no allegations were set forward that the owners could not meet the wage or benefit demands of the NFLPA.  Thus, in court, the allegations had little merit.  Likewise, the owners, prior to the union decertifying, accused the NFLPA of bargaining in bad faith stating that “the union’s strategy amounts to an unlawful anticipatory refusal to bargain.”  The core of the owners’ argument was that the union failed to bargain during the mediation because they were waiting to decertify in order to file antitrust suits.  The district court however, did not agree with the owners’ position entirely, and pushed back at the owners (and the players) to reengage in mediation.   Ultimately, district court Judge Nelson ordered both sides to enter into mediation with Magistrate Judge Arthur Boylan.

Part IV: Fourth and Goal

The Final Mediation

The initial mediation failed because the parties could not move beyond impasses and it resulted in the owners and players reaching to the court system to obtain a power advantage against their counter-party.  However, mediator Boylan, with years of successful high stakes mediations, effectively brought the sides together through a careful balance of facilitative mediation with proper phrasing and caucuses to limit the aggressive back and forth language that dominated the first mediation: “He (Boylan) won’t be cracking heads, but he has enormous staying power and enormous patience” . . . “He has a way to get it to the end.  He’s tenacious in the sense that he knows what the end game is and if he has any opportunity to find it, he’ll find it.”   Fortunately for NFL fans, players, owners, and all business associated with the sport, he was able to find the endgame and reach a fair agreement. Part IV analyzes the steps taken by mediator Boylan through the Hawaiian Mediation Model to arrive at a labor agreement between the owners and players.

The core of the Hawaiian Mediation Model is to utilize facilitative communication techniques to identify and clearly define the issues between the parties, and then to effectively negotiate a solution resulting in a fair and workable agreement.  The first task Boylan undertook prior to the mediation was working with Judge Nelson to assure that the mediation process could render a result and that each party was protected against the other from using the information and bargaining to their advantage should the mediation process fail.  Specifically, Boylan obtained cooperation from Judge Nelson, and she mandated that there was legal representation for both sides “as well as a party representative having full authority” to attend.  Judge Nelson also said that participation in the mediation “and any communications conveyed between the parties in this process, shall not be admitted or used against any party in any other proceeding or forum, for any purpose.”   Boylan’s first step was crucial to getting negotiations underway as the order addressed the players’ concern that any “new negotiations would not be considered by the court as the NFLPA returning to union status, rather than remaining as a trade association.”  Furthermore, Boylan’s first step was crucial in that the owners claimed the dissolution was a merely intended to strengthen the players position at the bargaining table, but the order effectively eliminated the dispute inside the mediation of whether the players were a union or not a union.

Although the internal working of the mediation procedure has not been publicized, the outcome and various press sources provide insight into how Boylan was able to finalize an agreement throughout the private workings of the mediation.  From the start of the mediation, likely in Boylan’s opening statement, he reinforced the need for labor peace sooner than later “for the good of the game, to preserve and protect the golden goose (the NFL Empire).”   Consequently, Boylan continually stressed the future and viewed the interests of the owners and the players as one single interest- protecting the NFL as a whole.  Hence, by Boylan transforming the mediation from the start from a power negotiation to an interest based negotiation, he was able to start facilitative communication between the parties: all parties have been communicating with each other and “appear to be serious about these talks and the potential consequences if they break down.”

Instead of jumping into disputant’s statements, Boylan decided to hold private caucuses to untangle the multitude of interests before bringing the disputants to the negotiating table together.   Boylan’s strategy was effective as a spokesperson for the players party stated that the “mediator was very open, it was a constructive session.”   By holding the caucuses, Boylan was able to identify all of the issues of both parties and move away from sequential, issue by issue, bargaining into a facilitative and effective method: “in both joint meetings and especially in the caucuses, the mediator probes beyond the apparent facts to learn the disputants’ underlying interests and feelings about the conflict.”

Boylan, by ascertaining the interests to the disputes besides the revenue sharing, was able to facilitate the parties into a solution by expanding the negotiation pie and utilizing simultaneous bargaining.  By raising all of the issues, suddenly the revenue aspects of the negotiation was only one, albeit important, aspect of the negotiation.  Consequently, the pie expanded incorporating revenue sharing, salary cap, player sanctioning for ill behavior, health, season length, safety, retirement programs, and rookie compensation.  Although all of those issues were mentioned at the beginning of the dispute, they were considered secondary issues to the revenue, and thus, in a sequential fashion were not brought onto the negotiation table.

Boylan though, facilitated compromise and effective communication by placing all of the issues on the table at once for the parties to engage in simultaneous bargaining.  Simultaneous bargaining was optimal for the labor dispute because there were several issues that could be juxtaposed against each other; however, Boylan merely placed the issues on the table, which allowed and encouraged the disputants to create their own solutions.

Consequently, a win-win deal was achieved as the players and owners were able to fulfill their interests.  Specifically, the NFL season will remain sixteen games through 2013, programs were initiated for health and safety of the players including limiting full pad practice, increased rest periods throughout the week, more stringent concussion standards were implemented, and all players could remain on the NFL player medical plan for life.   Furthermore, players obtained more stability when they became free agents by giving teams compensatory draft picks when they lose free agents, and free agents were unrestricted if they had accrued four or more seasons (for players with three or less accrued seasons they are restricted free agents). Additionally, the salary cap was expanded with a guarantee that 95% of the cap will be spent each season.   As to the revenue distribution, the players are guaranteed at least 47%, but the players will receive 55% of national media revenue, 40% of local club revenue, and owners will receive 1.5% increase of revenue (stopping when players reach 47%) for stadium investment.

The result was a ten year labor agreement, which illustrates the plan has longevity as it will span an entire decade.  Furthermore, Boylan was able to find a mutually satisfactory solution by balancing the interests with the revenue to create an agreement that fulfilled the interests of players (safety, health, stability of salary, and increased wage potential) with the interests of the owners (more revenue for the owners to reinvest into the team and save for themselves).  Hence, by facilitating the mediation, allowing the parties to reach a creative solution, highlighting the strength of effective communication, and focusing the negotiation on the future, Boylan was able to side step negotiation tactics and egos, and save the NFL season.

FOOTNOTES

                       

Judd Larson

Judd Larson is a 3L at Pepperdine School of Law and a student at the Straus Institute of Dispute Resolution. MORE >