Sector activity doubles in the past three years according to CEDR research
Commercial and civil mediation in the UK has grown by 30%, and mediation activity as whole has doubled, in the last three years according to the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution’s (CEDR) fourth Mediation Audit.
New research by the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution, published last week, reveals that approximately 6,000 mainstream commercial and civil cases mediated in the last year. This figure does not include workplace or small claims mediations. The total case value was £5.1bn, an increase of £1bn in the last three years.
Mediation works nine times out of ten, with about three quarters of cases settling on the day, and a further 14% settling shortly afterwards.
Clients usually make direct contact with mediators, rather than working through service organisations, and the numbers doing this has increased from 60% three years ago to 65%. The more experienced the mediator group, the more likely they are to receive direct referrals.
Even among the more experienced mediators, only 37% practise full-time.However, the fees can be lucrative. Less experienced mediators command average one-day mediation fees of £1,390, which have risen from £1,200 in 2007. Fees for more experienced mediators have risen more than 10% to £3,450 from £3,120 three years ago. About 90 individuals dominate the mediation market, being involved in about 85% of commercial cases.
Mediators blamed non-settlement on “intransigent parties, unrealistic expectations and clients on fishing expeditions”.
Conditional fee agreements (CFAs) were cited as a factor, particularly in personal injury cases, with a number of respondents citing instances “in which, due to high uplifts, claimants’ solicitors costs had become out of all proportion to the other issues in dispute, resulting in an additional barrier to settlement”.
Andy Rogers, CEDR communications manager, comments: “One of the reasons why PI has yet to fully embrace the use of mediation is because a CFA can create an additional party in the negotiations—the claimant solicitor. Mediators say that it can feel as if the claimant solicitor can have an agenda to achieve the maximum for their client and to ensure they receive the maximum as stipulated in any conditional fee agreement.”
