The judgment of Mrs Justice Collins Rice in Kumar v L.B. of Hillingdon [2020] EWHC 3326 is, to my mind, essential reading, particularly given the present debate around compulsory mediation.

Given the benefits a good plenary session can bring, it would be a great pity if they became synonymous with heat rather than light. Enthusiasm for plenary sessions would wane and they would become a less accepted part of the mediation process and that, I have no doubt, would be a regressive development in the field of ADR.

Good faith is a term one often hears at a mediation. In the morning, as an indication of a party’s good intentions; in the afternoon, as something that is lacking. Whatever the context, good faith easily falls within the top ten commonly used phrases in mediation, regardless of whether or not a good faith obligation is included in the mediation agreement the parties sign.

As we all know, the science described as Artificial Intelligence (AI) concerns the endowing of computers with the capabilities of human intelligence. When I hear the term AI, I think robots. I also think about blockbuster movies that have robots taking over the world causing mass destruction. Scary stuff.

The Singapore Convention on Mediation, as the United Nations Convention on International Settlement Agreements Resulting from Mediation will be known, was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 20 December 2018, and will be open for signature at a signing ceremony in Singapore to be held on 7 August 2019.

Mediation is a serious business! Indeed, no-one takes it more seriously than me. Yet, every serious endeavour has its moments of comedy, moments that bring a reflective smile to my face whilst travelling home.

At mediator school many years ago, I was taught that ‘measured diplomacy’ was the most appropriate style of dialogue between parties, positional bargaining was counter-productive (and could easily be trumped by a more principled approach) and as for the making of threats of any kind, well that was just plain silly. And then I started mediating!

At some point during a mediation, parties will turn their attention to the scope of the release one or more of the parties will enjoy in return for reciprocal obligations (usually an agreed payment) they have assumed as part of the overall deal.

On the second day of a costs assessment hearing following a clinical negligence action against Buckinghamshire NHS Trust, the costs to be allowed to the claimant were agreed. However, an argument over the costs of the assessment ended up before Master O’Hare.

After a few decades of largely unchanged mediation practice, some practitioners have begun to wonder whether there is anything beyond the tried and tested (and very successful) mediation model most of us have been working with for years.

This Update highlights a few confidentiality issues to have arisen recently as well as an interesting decision in which sanctions were not imposed on a party despite its unreasonable refusal to mediate.

This Update mentions a few cases which raise some interesting practical points for those practising in the field of ADR.

Disputes are a headache for any business. They not only divert time and money, but the outcome is never certain. It is not surprising, therefore, that the purchaser wants a discount, no doubt reflecting worst-case scenarios. If unacceptable, propose something else.

There can be few more challenging areas in which to mediate than the public sector. Often, there is not just a contractual issue to resolve, but a statutory backdrop and political dimension to contend with too!

It’s Monday morning. A big day for two businesses. They have been slogging it out in the courts but have agreed to mediate. Both parties have arrived early. They have acknowledged one another and embarked on some small talk but are now in their ‘corners’ of the reception area of one side’s law firm (the home team).

Ethics in mediation was the subject of a lively debate at the CIArb’s Mediation Symposium which took place on 25 October 2012.

At an opening session of a mediation a few weeks ago, one side presented the other with two pieces of paper – settlement option one and settlement option two. What is this heresy, I thought! No argy bargy? No explanation of why complete victory was a dead cert? Just the deal. In fact a pair of deals.

....is the title of the Update section of the March/April 2013 edition of the Procurement and Outsourcing Journal which describes (anonymously) a dispute I had the privilege of mediating.