The purpose of this research is to examine the events and circumstances surrounding a dispute between the U.S. government and the multinational American public corporation Motorola over the issue of the opening of the Japanese market to American cellular telephone technology. The plan of the research will be to set forth the context in which the dispute arose in 1994, including its major political and economic factors, and then to discuss how the set of issues involved in the dispute were shaped toward resolution.
With global business activity virtually mandated in the modern world on account of the revolution in telecommunications and transportation, issues of foreign trade and international law and the implied clash of cultures accompanying them, need to be understood: "Emphasis is placed on the business enterprise as it conducts its commercial activity in environments that are different in their economic, legal, political, social, and cultural aspects form the firms [sic] corresponding domestic environment."
Contracts honored by all parties to them are a primary feature of global enterprise, but encounters between often vastly different domestic commercial environments entail "domestic laws of both the home and host nations as well as the custom and usage of international business practice." Inevitably, a gap opens between the definitions and the practical application of variable (sometimes competing) historical and legal traditions. Unpredictability is also associated with any business arrangement: "Every contractual relationship is subject to events unanticipated by the parties that will impact on performance. To the extent that a contract does not anticipate these events and the parties are unable to resolve them, the courts may be called upon to make the necessary adjustments." In 1994, the courts of public opinion and international diplomacy were called on in a way that had the effect of avoiding a more formal and pote...