ABSTRACT
The actual mediation can consume as little as a few hours in simple disputes, or in complex matters it can take place over many sessions and consume a lengthy period of time. As an example, if the dispute deals with a breach of contract issue where the total claim is £30,000 and the respondent has already oered £10,000 prior to mediation, then such a matter will be resolved in a short time. The other type of matter would be an international commercial dispute where there are several parties such as the original claimant, who entered into a contract for the supply of a product that was to be assembled in two other countries and involves several subcontractors, each of whom is also involved in cross-claims against each of the other parties. In such a dispute, the mediator will rst want to have global discussion of what the claims are and who is alleged to have caused what particular problems, then to have separate sessions with key players in the hope of resolving individual aspects of the dispute and, nally, to have it down to a manageable size for ultimate resolution by just say two to three parties. This could take a few months to reach the reduced size for the ultimate conclusive mediation session. In cases such as this, that is, complex, large sums of money at stake or multi-sided cases, it is usually also unrealistic or inadvisable to keep all parties together for the whole time that the mediation is being conducted, but having regular joint sessions can help keep the ‘mediation momentum’ moving and promotes settlement.
