Commercial Mediation

Avoid the expense, delay, and distraction of litigation

Resolve disputes about money, property, goods, and services.

Commercial mediation is a quick, cost-effective, and private method of resolving your dispute: saving you from the stresses and costs of court, focussing on what everyone actually wants, and resolving your dispute amicably and consensually. What’s more, it is increasingly being encouraged by the courts and by the employment tribunal, and has a high rate of success.

Commercial mediation is used to address:

Business or contractual disputes
Claims over faulty goods or poor service
Personal injury claims
Copyright and intellectual property disputes

And often leads to:

An acknowledgement, explanation, or apology
Replacing goods or rectifying work
Paying some form of refund or compensation
Opening up a channel of better communication

How does it work?

1. Referring a case

A completed referral form, providing us with details of the dispute and of the parties, and a signed booking form all are that is needed to book in the case.

2. Prior to the mediation

The case manager will liaise with the referrer to organise the logistics, including timings, contact information, and online links (if required).

3. Joint meeting

Parties are invited to present their case in a short joint session, while also having the opportunity to ask any questions that they may have.

4. Shuttle mediation

The mediator will then spend the rest of the day shuttling between the parties, passing across offers, options, messages, and requests.

5. The agreement

The agreement is a joint plan of action decided upon by the participants. The mediator can write it up as a good faith agreement to give to both parties.

6. Feeding back

If there is a third-party referrer, UK Mediation will provide them with a Mediation Summary on the next working day (subject to parties’ consent).

7. Follow-up

The case manager will follow up the situation after an agreed period by contacting the parties confidentially to see if the agreement is working.

Commercial mediation FAQs

We understand that you may have some queries about how commercial mediation works.

We’ve answered some of the most Frequently Asked Questions below.

What sorts of disputes can commercial mediation be used for?

Commercial mediation is used to address disputes of a contractual or financial nature, where you may be seeking payment, compensation, re-provision of services, or replacement of goods.

The aim is to put parties' heads together and, through a facilitated process, come to some form of mutually-agreeable solution.

Is commercial mediation legally binding?

The agreement as written is not inherently binding, but can be made into a formal contract with legal input. We advise speaking to a solicitor once the agreement is written up in order to go down that route.

So do I need my solicitor to be present for commercial mediation?

No, we recommend that parties attend on their own in order to promote honest and open dialogue.

Having said that, the last half an hour of the day is spent is figuring out how the agreement can be made into a contract. We advise some discussion with a legal professional in order to make sure that parties are getting the correct exchange of value (not overpaying or underpaying).

Does commercial mediation work?

Yes - we have had great success with commercial mediation over the past 23 years. It can help to remove blockages within the dispute so that an agreement can be reached between the parties.

How long does commercial mediation take?

For commercial disputes, we recommend a full day's commercial mediation, running from 9:30-4:30.

Can commercial mediation be done online?

Yes, commercial mediation can be delivered either by Zoom or Teams, and works in exactly the same way.

Is commercial mediation confidential?

Yes, we ask parties to sign a Liability and Confidentiality on the day of the mediation. All notes relating to the mediation are also disposed of upon completion.

Is commercial mediation voluntary?

Yes, people cannot be made to take part in commercial mediation.

If parties are coerced into taking part, and if they are not taking part of their own volition, we find that this can lead to an unsuccessful mediation case.

Our relational model of mediation...

Here at UK Mediation, we treat conflict as a failure of dialogue and as a breakdown in a relationship.

Our relational model, re:talk, aims to restore dialogue, repair relationships, and rebuild teams, while re:connect allows us to achieve the same objectives through online mediation.