Cogniscenti (and readers of Ema Vidak-Gojkovic’s blog The UNCITRAL Convention on Enforcement of Conciliated Settlement Agreements – An Idea Whose Time Has Come?) will know that talks are ongoing in an attempt to see if it is possible to find a common system for the direct enforceability of agreements concluded in mediation. This is a…

One of the most interesting developments in business dispute resolution over the last decade is the way in which different methods of resolution are being harmonized. The EU Directive on Mediation is one example of this phenomenon, as well as several comprehensive early case assessment and conflict management programs rolled out by multinationals across their…

This year in the UK we are celebrating the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta, or “Great Charter”. Signed in 1215, it remains one of the most famous documents in the world, and central to the British constitution. In mediator parlance, it is a “settlement agreement”. It came into being as a compromise between King…

In the world of international mediation, global providers such as ICC, WIPO and AAA/ICDR dominate the landscape together with various more regionally based institutions such as HKIAC, SMC and CEDR. Of course, parties who choose to resolve cross-border disputes by way of mediation are free to develop their own bespoke rules of engagement as they might in their domestic mediations…

Hockey is a deeply ingrained part of the Canadian identity so it’s not surprising that the Country has been abuzz this week around the question: “Has a high profile 10-year old case been settled through mediation or not?” The case, Moore v. Bertuzzi et al,  arose from events that occurred during a National Hockey League…

In his recent posting for the Kluwer Arbitration Blog, Michael McIlwrath picks up on what I affectionately refer to as the NYC4M (New York Convention for Mediation) theme, that is the debate about whether an international convention for the enforcement and recognition of cross-border mediated settlement agreements would assist the development of, and promote the…

Earlier this month the Supreme Court of Canada issued its unanimous decision in Union Carbide Canada Inc. v. Bombardier Inc., 2014 SCC 35. The reasons of Mr. Justice Wagner deal with an unfortunate situation in which Bombardier, which had been suing Union Carbide for more than a decade seeking CAN$30 million  related to allegedly defective…