If you are a young startup or an established emerging company and you have been thinking of ways to expand internationally and accelerate your business growth, you may already recognise yourself in the theme of the Up4Scale Podcast – Scale faster through market development. In this article, we will dive deeper into the secrets of growth and highlight the role of commercial and business law contracts in facilitating international expansion / commercialization. We will focus particularly on how SMEs can use strategic agreements to grow their business internationally and develop new markets. You may also know Bilateral accords as Bi-lateral agreements or simply as Bi-lateral contracts. A Bi-lateral contract is a mutual agreement between two parties which requires each party to provide a consideration or an advantage to the other party. In other words, parties to a bi-lateral contract are bound by their mutual promises or obligations. A simplified version of a ‘bi-lateral real estate agreement’ or ‘bi-lateral land acquisition agreement’ is when a party or a group of parties (for example 2 developers) enter into an agreement to acquire a piece of land in order to develop a project together. The contract or agreement is usually governed by laws of a jurisdiction or specific country in which the land or property is located. Most (if not all) developers will sign a bi-lateral land acquisition agreement for a particular type of land or property. It is important to note that even among developers there are numerous land acquisition contracting strategies for them to choose from based on their investor agreements, shareholdings, joint ventures, partnerships, development co-management and strategic alliances.