India Johnson, Chairman of the American Arbitration Association, visited Korea … Korean companies often give up arbitration due to expense
“We will strengthen ‘Korea-U.S. cooperation’ in the international arbitration sector by listening directly to the difficulties that Korean companies face in the international arbitration process and through eye-to-eye training.”
India Johnson (pictured), chairman of the AAA, the world’s largest international arbitration agency, said on Monday, “In order for Korea to develop into an Asian arbitration power, it needs institutional support of education and of systemic support for the grievances that companies have in international disputes.” Arbitration is an alternative dispute settlement system in which mediators, rather than judges, induce the parties to compromise. It has been used primarily in commercial areas such as trade and investment contracts in the past, but recently it has spread to various fields such as sports and media.
Johnson, who visited Korea first time to attend the 2015 Seoul International Arbitration Symposium held at the Seoul Global Center in Jongno-gu, Seoul, said in an interview with the Dong-A Ilbo on the 1st, ” Continental law countries like Korea have very few international arbitration experts because of unfamiliar English-American mediation systems that primarily depend on English, oral interrogation procedures, and discovery. The result is that small and medium-sized enterprises with weak financial resources often abandon arbitration at all.”
The International Dispute Resolution Center (ICDR), an affiliate of the AAA, created the world’s first “permanent advisory committee” in Korea in March last year to reflect suggestions from Korean businessmen in the international arbitration rules. As a result, a new, paper-based procedure was established to quickly settle disputes at a low-cost, and adopted by international arbitration agencies, including AAA.
Article from
http://news.donga.com/3/all/20150903/73401748/1
English 
Korean