A post over on an Irish website which conveys the impact of the recession on the thinking of businesses to dispute resolution.
"Attempts to resolve commercial disputes by mediation will double over the next year, as businesses seek a cheaper and faster alternative to litigation, according to a new survey.
The Irish Commercial Mediation Association (ICMA) issued a questionnaire to the managing partners of more than 3,500 law, accountancy and other professional firms to ascertain attitudes towards commercial mediation and compile statistics on mediations over the last three years.
Commercial mediation is a private process of assisted negotiation. If agreement is reached, it is legally binding. The ICMA said that, given the poor economic climate, clients were seeking a cost-effective solution to commercial disputes, while minimising business disruption.
According to the ICMA survey, three quarters of lawyers, accountants and business consultants rank mediation as their first preference for dispute resolution, followed by conciliation, arbitration and litigation.
Two thirds of lawyers and more than a third of accountants said they had experience of mediation, while one in three law firms and one in five accountancy firms now had an accredited mediator.
The respondents said the key advantages of mediation were cost (saving up to 70 per cent on litigation), speed, control of the process and the preservation of business relationships. The survey found that mediation was most widely used in family businesses and construction disputes, followed by partnership conflicts, property issues and business terminations. "