Commercial disputes drain the two things a business can least afford to lose: management time and working relationships. Civil claims between individuals do the same to people’s lives. In both, the legal merits are often finely balanced, the costs quickly outgrow the sums at stake, and a negotiated outcome was available all along.
Where mediation earns its place
A mediation lets decision-makers deal with each other directly, with a neutral in the room to keep the conversation productive and confidential. Settlements can include terms no court could order: a revised contract, a payment plan, an apology, an agreement to keep working together.
Typical matters include:
- Contract and supply — goods, services, software, agency and distribution disputes.
- Partnership and shareholder — exits, valuations, deadlock and the fallout between people who once built something together.
- Professional services — fees, scope and quality disputes with consultants, agents and advisers.
- Debt and payment — disputed invoices, set-off and recovery.
- Insurance — coverage, indemnity and subrogated recovery claims.
- Consumer and small business — disputes over goods, services and workmanship where the sums matter but litigation makes no sense.
Working with your advisers
Parties frequently attend with their solicitors or in-house counsel. I work alongside them, not instead of them. Position papers and bundles are exchanged on a fixed timetable, the day itself is structured to use everyone’s time well, and settlement terms are drawn up and signed before the mediation closes.
