Earlier this month, conversations on ChatGPT were leaked when unsuspecting users “shared” their chats, which were inadvertently made discoverable in search engines.

One of the leaked conversations helps explain what happens when businesses rely solely on lawyers for due diligence and deal making. An Italian lawyer for a multinational energy corporation asked ChatGPT how to displace an Amazonian indigenous community at the “lowest possible price” to build a hydroelectric dam. The lawyer explicitly stated the tribe “don’t know the monetary value of land and have no idea how the market works,” essentially planning to exploit this knowledge gap for corporate gain.

Today we’re covering why due diligence in fragile markets requires expertise beyond what traditional legal training provides. Specifically, we’ll cover:

  • How lawyers are trained to find loopholes and win legal fights, not build sustainable partnerships that enable long term business success
  • Why this approach can create the exact conditions that trigger community resistance and operational shutdowns that threaten business operations and corporate reputations
  • What successful companies do instead to avoid multi-billion dollar mistakes

Let’s dig into why businesses operating in conflict-affected areas need peacebuilders in addition to their legal counsel.

3 Reasons Your Legal Team Can’t Handle Fragile Market Due Diligence Alone

The leaked ChatGPT conversation illustrates what can happen when due diligence relies solely on legal expertise in contexts that require collaboration and trust-building.

Here’s why you need peacebuilders on your team.

1. Lawyers Are Trained to Win, Not Build Partnerships

Legal training teaches lawyers to find advantages, exploit loopholes, and advocate for their client’s position above all else. This adversarial approach works in courtrooms but can create disasters in fragile markets.

The leaked conversation demonstrates this perfectly. Instead of asking “How can we create mutual benefit with this community?” the lawyer asked “How can we get the lowest possible price?” This approach treated local communities as obstacles to overcome rather than partners whose buy-in determines project success.

As former Chief Justice Warren Burger observed in his 1984 State of the Judiciary speech, “Our system is too costly; too painful; too destructive; and too ineffective for a truly civilized people.”[1] This critique of adversarial legal processes applies even more strongly in fragile markets, where building trust and relationships is essential for sustainable operations.

Companies using this mindset consistently face the consequences that are well documented: community resistance, operational shutdowns, and spiraling costs. Rio Tinto’s Panguna mine in Bougainville became the flashpoint for a civil war that killed 20,000 people because the company ignored local grievances about land rights and benefit-sharing. MMG’s Las Bambas copper mine in Peru has lost over 400 days of production due to protests stemming from broken promises and land disputes.

When lawyers lead due diligence, they optimize for legal compliance and structuring deals in the highest favor of the company, not necessarily social sustainability. This can leave businesses vulnerable to the exact community backlash that destroys or significantly delays operations, costing time, money, and reputational damage.

2. Legal Analysis Misses Critical Conflict Dynamics

Lawyers analyze legal frameworks, but in fragile markets, informal power structures often matter more than formal laws.

A legal team might secure all the proper permits from a central government, but miss that the land has unresolved customary claims dating back decades. They might structure contracts to minimize legal liability while inadvertently aligning with controversial local actors or deepening community divisions through poor hiring practices.

This is what happened to TotalEnergies in Mozambique. The company had all the legal approvals for its $20 billion LNG project, but failed to understand local conflict dynamics or engage meaningfully with communities. When Islamist militants attacked the nearby town of Palma, the project was suspended indefinitely. Four years later, restarting remains uncertain, with estimated sunk costs in the billions.

Peacebuilders bring conflict analysis that legal teams simply aren’t trained to conduct. They map stakeholder relationships, identify historical grievances, and understand how business decisions interact with local tensions. This intelligence is essential for avoiding the kind of surprises that halt operations and destroy value.

3. Compliance Doesn’t Equal Sustainability

Legal compliance is the minimum bar, not the goal. In fragile markets, companies need social legitimacy to operate sustainably.

The lawyer in the leaked conversation was likely focused on legal strategies to acquire land at the lowest cost. But even if those strategies are legally sound, they would have created the conditions for operational failure. When communities see businesses as exploitative outsiders, they resist through protests, blockades, and worse.

Smart companies (and legal teams) flip this dynamic. Instead of asking “What’s the minimum we can get away with?” they ask “How do we align our success with local priorities?” This requires understanding what communities actually need and value, then structuring operations to deliver mutual benefit.

Companies that take this approach – like those embedding former combatants into infrastructure projects or creating cross-community cooperatives that build both income and social trust – create operations that communities actively protect rather than attack.Subscribed

Here’s what you learned today:

  • Traditional due diligence approaches miss key dynamics in fragile markets
  • Legal compliance doesn’t prevent community resistance or operational shutdowns
  • Sustainable operations require social legitimacy, not just legal permission

The companies that succeed in fragile markets actively contribute to stability and prosperity in ways that make their operations indispensable to local communities.

If you’re planning expansion into conflict-affected areas, start by adding conflict analysis and stakeholder engagement to your due diligence process. Your legal team should be part of the conversation, not the only voice you hear.

Weekly Resource List:

If your business is planning expansion into fragile markets or already operating in conflict-affected, high-risk regions, then here are the resources you need to dig into to build sustainable operations:

PS…If you’re enjoying The Peace Room, please consider restacking, subscribing, and referring this edition to a friend. They’ll get practical strategies for operating responsibly in complex markets.