A NEW MODEL FOR MEDIATION

摘要

In June the Construction Industry Council (CIC) published its Model Mediation Agreement and Procedure (MMAP). In the accompanying press release the CIC identified the damage that construction and engineering disputes may do to business relationships as well as the financial and emotional cost and stated, quite rightly, that mediation has an important role to play in the resolution of such disputes. It went on to indicate that the MMAP offers an "innovative approach to the low-cost resolution of disputes", containing as it does "unique features in respect of people and process which empower the mediator and the parties". The MMAP does indeed include an option for a low-cost resolution of low-value disputes. Clause 24 refers to a fixed-fee mediation whereby all mediators on the CIC Panel are prepared to conduct a mediation for £6,000 (excluding expenses and presumably also VAT) for any construction and engineering dispute that concerns a sum of less than £100,000 (exclusive of VAT). This is certainly a step in the right direction, and it will be interesting to see how often the fixed-fee mediation procedure is used.