SLAPPs: Intent or Content?Anti-SLAPP Legislation Goes International

Due to the increasing interest in adopting anti-SLAPP legislation outside of the USA (where it was first implemented), the definition of what constitutes a SLAPP is being questioned. Some commentators have advanced the suggestion that, in order to account for jurisdictional differences, outside of the USA it is the motivation to intimidate or chill public speech that is the aspect of a SLAPP on which anti-SLAPP legislation must focus. However, defining SLAPPs by the initiator's alleged intent to intimidate can render anti-SLAPP legislation, in any jurisdiction, ineffective. SLAPPs should be defined by the involvement of public participation, rather than by the intent of the SLAPP plaintiff. Effective anti-SLAPP legislation employs procedural protections that are engaged once a threshold demonstration has been made that the case involves protected public interest communications. Generally, this approach is appropriate to adopt in any jurisdiction where the legislature desires to protect public interest communications.     

Building the firm's political (lobbying) strategy

• In this paper, we present a framework for building a firm's issue‐specific lobbying strategy. We argue that there are five critical elements of a lobbying strategy and that the major choices concerning political lobbying strategy relate to these elements. The five elements, and the primary strategic choices concerning these elements are: (1) the choice of the level and type of inclusiveness of the strategy; (2) the choice of the form, or forms, of argument to be used in persuading relevant target constituencies; (3) the choice of jurisdictional venue to be addressed; (4) the choice of organizational target that will be engaged and (5) the choice of delivery mode—that is, whether political strategies should be implemented directly by firm managers or outsourced to professional suppliers of these services. We explain these elements in detail. However, in order to engage in a lobbying strategy on a specific issue, the firm must first be able to identify relevant government actions and understand their profitability impact. We show how the strategic logic can be generated by an augmented version of Porter's ‘five forces’ (5F) model (Porter, 1980 ) that explicitly recognizes the role of government—‘six forces’ analysis.

Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Deception and Mutual Gains Bargaining: Are They Mutually Exclusive?

Conclusion We have made great strides in recent years teaching more people — in classrooms, corporate training sessions, and actual negotiations — about negotiations, including how to be more ethical and how to ensure that integrative joint gains are not left on the table. The fact that we even need to write an article like this is an indication of the advances that have been made.Yet exactly because of these advances, more care needs to be taken to ensure that the subtle distinction between what is ethical and what is integrative is maintained. Being ethical in negotiations is more complicated than producing greater joint utility, and the techniques that are helpful for producing greater joint utility should not be made more complicated by the addition of ethical concerns. Each issue — ethics and mutual gains bargaining — can stand on its own, and benefits by being considered on its own. By maintaining this distinction, we believe each will have greater clarity and greater impact, and our teaching and training will be both better received and more valuable to those we teach.