Ronen Palan - Arbitrage Power and the Politics of the Modern Firm (UCSB Global Studies Colloquium)

Ronen Palan - Arbitrage Power and the Politics of the Modern Firm Multinationals employ techniques of Jurisdictional arbitrage, exploiting gaps, loopholes, and omissions in the laws of one country against another. In doing so, instead of being subject to the constraining rules of their home or host states, multinationals are able to control up to a point the institutional and regulatory environment; they burrow a path of least (regulatory) resistance through the cacophony of national rules and regulations that make up the global market. The ability to control and shape one’s institutional environment is a form of power. The use of such arbitraging techniques is sophisticated and pervasive to the point that they are altering the relationship between states and corporations, and the rules of competition in the global market. This presentation reports on the finding of a five-year project funded by the EU on corporate arbitrage. Ronen Palan is professor of International Political Economy at City, University of London and holder of an ERC Advanced Grant. He published several books on the subject of offshore finance and tax havens. His most recent co-authored book with Anastasia Nesvetailova, Sabotage: The Business of Finance, was published by Penguin in the UK and Public Affairs in the US.