4

Two Companies Resolve A Dispute With An Arm-Wrestling Match

AndreyPopov/iStock/Getty Images

In 2003, two New Zealand telecommunications companies were embroiled in a legal standoff. MCS Digital had been trying for months to get access to TeamTalk's mobile radio network, but neither company could agree to terms. It looked like this dispute was going to be dragged through the courts, which would mean a lot of time and money wasted. So the CEO of TeamTalk, David Ware, came up with a more personal and cost-effective way to settle the dispute: He challenged the MCS Digital CEO, Allan Cosford, to an arm-wrestling match. Whoever won the best of three rounds would be allowed to dictate the terms of the agreement, which is simultaneously one of the most badass and most poorly conceived legal agreements in history.

TeamTalk
"I make all my business decisions based on the teachings of Sylvester Stallone."

3

Conflicts In A Peruvian Village Are Settled By Residents Beating The Crap Out Of Each Other

Vice

The Peruvian province of Chumbivilcas doesn't bother with such contrivances as courts or due process or really any sort of legal system. With few police and a nearly nonexistent military presence, residents of Chumbivilcas have found their own style of conflict resolution -- basically, two days a year, residents are given free rein to beat the shit out of each other until the winner is decided through brute force.

Vice
No evidence suggests they formed their government after binge-watching dozens
of Jerry Springer episodes, but no evidence suggests they didn't.

2

A Police Confrontation Is Resolved With A Dance-Off

Aaliyah Taylor

In modern-day America, conflicts between minority teenagers and the police often tragically end in a hail of bullets. But last year in Washington, D.C., a situation involving some teenagers came to a much more amicable head. When police were called to a potentially violent confrontation between two groups of teenagers at Ballou High School, student Aaliyah Taylor decided that she could ward off the cops with her superior krumping skills. But a D.C. police officer who was called to the scene was, as witnesses described, all like, "Aw hell naw." She, in turn, started dancing back right in front of Taylor, thus triggering an all-out legal dance-off.

1

A Corporate Conflict Is Resolved By Rock-Paper-Scissors

LifeJourneys/iStock/Getty Images

In 2005, Japanese millionaire Takashi Hashiyama, president of the Maspro Denkoh Corporation, decided to sell his $20 million art collection, and two auction companies, Christie's International and Sotheby's, fought to handle the lucrative contract. Takashi, an eccentric (aren't all millionaires?) whose collection included rare paintings from Cezanne, Picasso, and Van Gogh, couldn't decide which company to go with, so he decided to settle the matter in an ancient and time-honored tradition. In the Western tongue, we believe it is known as rock-paper-scissors.

Sotheby's
It's a fitting strategy for an industry that revolves entirely around people yelling numbers
while praying other people don't yell bigger numbers.

Representatives from both companies were invited to take part in what was probably the most high-stakes rock-paper-scissors tournament of all time. Sotheby's decided to trust luck, figuring that rock-paper-scissors is basically a coin flip -- a game of chance with no strategy involved.

That proved to be a mistake, because Kanae Ishibashi, the president of Christie's, consulted a group of professionals, by which we mean her art director's 11-year-old twin daughters, who advised her, "Everyone knows you always start with scissors." They added, "Rock is way too obvious. ... Everybody expects you to choose rock."

Paul Cezanne
We're sure Cezanne would've loved to hear his $12 million masterpiece got
its fate decided the same way siblings decide who rides shotgun.

The representative for Sotheby's chose paper (because remember, everybody expects you to choose rock), but the unexpected scissors sliced right through it, netting Christie's the full right to sell the collection. Word is that to this day you can find that poor Sotheby's representative drunk at his local bar, loudly lamenting to anybody who will listen about the time he blew the big game.

J. Olasz is an aspiring writer who has been patiently awaiting his overnight fame for over 40 years. He's trying to get the word out that he has an actual book that you may like. He also creates horribly difficult but enjoyable gaming modules. Since he can't draw but pretends that he can write, he published a LEGO webcomic and, of course, has a Twitter feed.

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For more times where corporations were clearly being run by neanderthals, check out The 5 Worst Marketing Ideas Ever Put Into Action and 5 Honest Mistakes That Became PR Disasters For Big Companies.

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