Forum shopping is inevitable and the impact is tiny
Markus Petsche 2011. Markus is an Associate Professor in the Department of Legal Studies at the Central European University who has authored books on international arbitration and litigation, alternative dispute resolution, conflict of laws, international business transactions, and comparative private law. He also acts as arbitrator and mediator in international business disputes. International Lawyer (Southern Methodist University), What's Wrong with Forum Shopping - An Attempt to Identify and Assess the Real Issues of a Controversial Practice. https://scholar.smu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1448&context=til skohli
The basic conclusion of this article is that the potentially detrimental impact of forum selection is limited. Contrary to what numerous writers argue, tactics aimed at benefiting from favorable procedural or substantive laws are not detrimental to the achievement of fairness and should not, therefore, be considered as forum shopping. Also, the lack of decisional uniformity caused by the practice of forum selection is not, as such, problematic-not because of the reasons put forward by Professor Juenger (essentially the desirability of applying the substantively superior lexfor), but because lack of uniformity does not directly impact the equality between the parties (fairness). Thus, the real issues that forum selection may cause are issues of efficiency and, to a more limited extent, issues of unequal convenience.
Importantly, this article has also shown that, at the international level, forum shopping is inevitable as long as litigants are offered jurisdictional options or alternatives. This article has also shown that the availability of such alternatives, though it generates forum shopping opportunities, is ultimately beneficial to the interests of international litigation inasmuch as it strikes a reasonable balance between efficiency and fairness, on the one hand, and the interests of the plaintiff and those of the defendant, on the other. Finally, this article has also emphasized that, as a practical matter, litigants have incentives to refrain from forum shopping, which contributes to limiting the practical significance of this problem.
The identification of potential problems caused by forum selection, as well as the overall conclusion that the magnitude of such problems is limited, should be borne in mind when elaborating policies addressing forum shopping, or when assessing current approaches. In particular, it may usefully inform the rather controversial debate surrounding the objectives pursued by the doctrine of forum non conveniens.