Changes to the FPR are resulting in more referrals to mediation. David Emmerson OBE explores the new provisions & their impact on practitioners & clients
- Sets out the changes to the FPR, which came in earlier this year, and discusses in detail private financial dispute resolutions and early neutral evaluations, including their benefits and differences.
Important changes were introduced in April 2024 to the Family Procedure Rules (FPR), in particular to FPR Pt 3, which has been underused. The family court has wide powers and:
(i) FPR 1.4(1) provides that the court ‘must further the overriding objective by actively managing cases’; and
(ii) FPR 1.4(2)(f) states that active case management includes ‘encouraging the parties to use a non-court dispute resolution procedure if the court considers that appropriate and facilitating the use of such procedure’.
The definition of ‘non-court dispute resolution’ (NCDR) at FPR 2.3(1)(b) was widened to mean:
‘methods of resolving a dispute other than through the court process, including but not limited to mediation, arbitration, evaluation
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