# kaal:claim:3125822-030

**Claim.** When the bench of arbiters is small, a powerful private user can capture it in advance by spending heavily to engage the bench through separate contracts, mirroring the way powerful firms pay retainers to judges in the United States legal system.

**Type.** failure  **Support.** argued

**Holds when.**

- applies when the bench of an expertise tag is small
- applies when pseudonymous identity is revealed or anonymity is neglected

**Source quote.**

> when the bench is small, a powerful private user could spend a great deal of money engaging the bench with separate contracts beforehand, as happens today in the U.S. when traditional judges are given regular consulting fees by powerful firms to ensure preferential treatment in the future.

**From.** Craig Calcaterra, Wulf A. Kaal, Vlad Andrei, *Blockchain Infrastructure for Measuring Domain Specific Reputation in Autonomous Decentralized and A* (2018), 7.2.7 Attacks, page 31

**Cite as.** Craig Calcaterra, Wulf A. Kaal, Vlad Andrei, Blockchain Infrastructure for Measuring Domain Specific Reputation in Autonomous Decentralized and A (2018). SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3125822

**Verify.** sha256 of source PDF `d4d0bbaa3260968226186131d60e6d64a53e904d94e4295c61fd17042f1191ef` at https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wulfkaal/Academic-Papers/main/papers/pdf/Calcaterra%20et%20al.%20-%202018%20-%20Blockchain%20Infrastructure%20for%20Measuring%20Domain%20Specific%20Reputation%20in%20Autonomous%20Decentralized%20and%20A.pdf

**Failure mode.** bench capture by prior engagement  (family: plutocratic-capture)

**Topics.** regulatory-failure

**Keywords.** bench-capture, bribery, arbiter, small-bench

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