A Golden day for Mediation:
The Court of Appeal has resoundingly affirmed the need for parties to actively engage in an invitation to mediate. They can no longer bury their heads in the sand, and ignore such an invitation. Lord Justice Briggs, in giving the main judgment, said:
“This case sends out an important message to civil litigants, requiring them to engage with a serious invitation to participate in ADR, even if they have reasons which might justify a refusal, or the undertaking of some other form of ADR, or ADR at some other time in the litigation. To allow the present appeal would, as it seems to me, blunt that message. The court’s task in encouraging the more proportionate conduct of civil litigation is so important in current economic circumstances that it is appropriate to emphasise that message by a sanction which, even if a little more vigorous than I would have preferred, nonetheless operates pour encourager les autres.” (para 56)
We at Berkeley Square Mediation Limited stand ready to assist all those accordingly encouraged by Lord Justice Briggs.