Last month, the Centre for Dispute Resolution (Cedr) published its results for the number of commercial mediations it had conducted in the year since the Woolf Reforms. The number of mediations handled by the group had risen by 141%. The group’s chief executive, Professor Karl Mackie, claimed the results signified “a real change in culture” toward alternative dispute resolution (ADR).
From April 1999 to March 2000, Cedr mediated in 462 commercial disputes (compared to 192 for the previous 12 months) with an average value of £2.6m, giving a total of £1.2bn. The growth in Cedr’s business is impressive, but has there really been a fundamental shift in attitudes during the past year, or is it simply the courts imposing mediation on parties that just want to battle it out in open court?
