B2585 - INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS NEGOTIATION

Learning outcomes

The purpose of the course is to allow students to negotiate, in team, with a team of foreign students about an international business deal. Major goals of the course are: to stimulate students to look at such deals from other than purely legal angles, e;g. including attention for strategy; to teach students negotaiating skills by allowing them to engage in realistic negotiations; to contribute to their sensistivity for intercultural issues that play a role in such settings and therefor to contribute to attitudes that incorporate such sensitivities.This course teaches hands-on, real world, international negotiation skills in a simulated negotiation. The negotiations will take place through written exchanges and live negotiations conducted via videoconference. The course will provide students with an opportunity to: (i) experience the sequential development of a business transaction over an extended negotiation; (ii) study the business and legal issues and strategies that impact the negotiation; (iii) gain insight into the dynamics of negotiating and structuring international business transactions; (iv) learn about the role that lawyers and lawplay in these negotiations; (v) give students experience in drafting communications; and (vi) provide negotiating experience in a context that replicates actual legal practice with an opposing party.

Course contents

The IBN course is designed to offer theoretical and practical knowledge of negotiation, which will be explored as deal-making and problem-solving processes, as well as a non-adjudicative dispute resolution mechanism in civil and commercial matters. The course will introduce students to the interdisciplinary theory of negotiation, drawing from the Principled Negotiation model developed at Harvard Law School (10h).

The course will also provide a theoretical background on the relevant legal framework for dispute resolution through parties’ negotiation in Italy and worldwide (e.g., U.S. Uniform collaborative Law Rules; Italian assisted negotiation under Decreto Legge 12.09.2014, n. 132; early neutral evaluation under the English Civil Procedural Rules; "awards by consent" and "dispute review boards" in international commercial arbitration institutions; and the circulation of international settlements under the 2019 UNCITRAL Singapore Convention on Mediation – 8h). Finally, the IBN course offers extended training in negotiation skills by adopting learning-by-doing methodologies (30h). Students are expected to work on in-class negotiation simulations on a weekly basis. The results of these practical experiences will also be used as material for collective discussion and for further focus on the relevant negotiation theories and tools.

The IBN course equips students with skills extremely relevant in modern legal work, where negotiations in complex interpersonal settings, deal-making, consensus-building, and problem-solving frequently take center stage.

Readings/Bibliography

Teaching materials and negotiation cases will be made available in class and via the Virtuale platform. All students are recommended to read: Fisher, Ury, Patton, Getting to Yes (Random House Business, 2012).

Non attending students shall also adopt as textbook: Gabellini, Monoriti, NegotiAction (McGraw-Hill Education, 2024).

Teaching methods

Students’ attendance is strongly encouraged, as in-class participation and simulations play a key role in fostering the acquisition of practical negotiation skills. Class time will be allocated between theoretical lectures, including guest lectures by experts in various fields of negotiation, and hands-on practical activities. During in-class simulations, each student will assume a distinct role (e.g., negotiating party, party representative, third-party observer) within the context of commercial transactions or attempts to settle civil and commercial disputes.

 

Assessment methods

Attendance will require presence to 80% of classes. Attending students will be graded taking into account: active participation to lectures and simulations (80% of the final grade); take-home exam, consisting of 2 open questions or an in-class presentation (20% of the final grade).

Non attending students will sit an oral exam on the contents of the two textbooks.  

The course assigns 7 CFU and each student will be assigned an individual mark out of 30 (pass grade: 18/30).

Teaching tools

Relevant materials (reading extracts from textbooks; essays and articles; simulation cases; videos; AI tools) will be made available on Virtuale.

Office hours

See the website of Angela Maria Felicetti