INDEPENDENT MEDIATION SERVICES

Commercial Litigation Disputes

Our mediators all have experience in mediating all kinds of commercial and insurance disputes, including professional negligence.

Professional Negligence Disputes

Professional negligence disputes often involve allegations of poor or negligent advice and even fraud, leading to sensitive, protracted and expensive litigation that the parties can ill afford, particularly if they have already suffered loss.

Claims are often funded by conditional fee agreements and/or damages based agreements.With professional indemnity insurers involved, the issues can be become more complicated, leading to further pressure on the parties both in terms of costs and time.

Dispute resolution processes such as mediation offer clients an opportunity to manage such disputes sensitively, confidentially and quickly.

Reputation Management 

Professionals' reputations are often on the line and mediation can help to reduce the risk of reputational damage.As the Courts increasingly penalise parties who refuse or ignore invitations to mediate it can be negligent to fail to offer mediation at an early stage or to accept an invitation to mediate.

Professional Negligence Pre-Action Protocol

The Professional Negligence Pre-Action Protocol expects the parties to a professional negligence claim to undertake alternative dispute resolution, to include mediation, before commencing any proceedings.

Standstill Agreements

Many claims are subject to so-called standstill agreements, which freeze the case without settling or dismissing it.  We can provide a precedent standstill agreement if that would assist in your case. 

The idea behind standstill agreements is that they give claimants some extra time over and above the official time limits within which to finalise their investigations, in circumstances where they would otherwise be forced to start litigation and incur expensive court fees and other legal costs.

Claimants and defendant insurers are often happy to put matters on hold while they try to resolve them and avoid having to pay the issue fee or defence lawyers’ costs.

Litigation is increasingly expensive and outmoded. Mediation is a far preferable way of dealing with a professional negligence claim than protracted, stressful and expensive legal proceedings, involving costs and Court fees, which have risen exponentially. 

It can cost 5% of the value of the claim to issue it at Court.  If fixed recoverable costs are introduced, as planned, then there will be a further incentive to resolve claims early on as any costs over the cap will not be recoverable from the other party.

For insurers and claimants alike it is better to spend a relatively small sum on a mediation rather than continuing with costly litigation.