BEYOND FORCE MAJEURE: CORPORATE DISPUTE STRATEGY DURING SYSTEMIC CRISIS
For many businesses, events like the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, various military conflicts and natural disasters were initially viewed as ‘once in a generation’ disruptions. They were extraordinary scenarios unlikely to be repeated in modern commercial life. However, recent years have suggested something different: that systemic instability may no longer be the exception to global commerce, but an enduring feature of it.
The era of systemic disruptions
These unforeseen and dynamic events have profoundly changed how companies the world over respond to commercial upheaval. Recent studies suggest that major supply chain disruptions are becoming a recurring feature of global commerce rather than rare anomalies.
The Russia-Ukraine war alone reshaped global energy markets, disrupted commodity flows, altered payment systems, triggered sweeping sanctions programmes and forced businesses to reassess contractual relationships that had once appeared commercially stable. More recently, instability in the Middle East and attacks affecting Red Sea shipping routes have again demonstrated how quickly geopolitical events can cascade into commercial disruption across industries.
The operational consequences of these events are often immediate and visible: goods and services fail to be delivered, causing prices to fluctuate dramatically, which causes financing to become uncertain as regulatory obligations shift in real time.
Less visible, but equally significant, is the way systemic disruption reshapes the dispute landscape surrounding commercial relationships.
In practice, major crises rarely produce isolated disputes. Instead, they create interconnected chains of commercial stress. A sanctions designation may render contractual performance legally impossible in one jurisdiction while exposing parties to liability risks in another.
Jul-Sep 2026 issue
Baker Hughes