Risk and Return : Foreign Direct Investment and the Rule of Law

This is the report of a survey conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit, on behalf of Hogan Lovells, the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law, and the Investment Treaty Forum of the the British Institute of International Comparative Law, on the relationship between corporate Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) decision-making and the Rule of Law. The survey seeks to identify the factors multinational corporates consider in selecting where to invest internationally, and to gauge in particular the role of the Rule of Law, defined as ‘certain, accessible and prospective laws; equally enforced; with access to justice (…) where rights may be asserted (…) through fair trials before an independent judiciary’. The survey was conducted with 301 senior decision makers at Forbes 2000 companies with global annual revenues of at least USD1bn. Most companies surveyed were headquartered in the US and Canada (40.9%), Western Europe (32.9%) and Asia (14.3%). Respondents represented companies operating in a variety of industry sectors, including financial services (19%), information industries and telecommunications (16%), energy and natural resources (15%) and healthcare, pharmaceuticals and biotechnologies (15%). The analysis and report is solely the work of the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law and the Investment Treaty Forum