Furthermore, it may be that the information most important to the reputation market is not that a dealer has been involved in a dispute or even that he has breached a contract, but rather that he has been prepared to either settle disputes or abide by the judgments of the arbitral tribunal when a third-party adjudication was necessary.

XREF: Connects to reputation economics literature (Milgrom/North on the Law Merchant) and signaling theory in information markets.

Lisa Bernestein, Opting out of the Legal Sys…, loc. 241