The UK Minister of State for Justice, Lord Faulks, announced the finding from the 2014 CEDR Mediation Audit that the UK mediation market had grown by 9% in the last year, meaning that 9500 commercial mediations were performed in the last 12 months.
The audit also shows that in the last 12 months £9 billion worth of commercial claims were mediated and that through mediation this year businesses will save £2.4 billion in management time, relationships, productivity and legal fees. As a profession Mediators and Service Providers in the last year earned £22.5 million – this is an impressive return on investment when compared with the savings.
In Ireland, there is no reason why we could and should be doing the same. Roughly calculated, mediation could save Irish business €200 million. In the absence of real hard data we don’t know how much mediation is going on but anecdotally we know it is a lot less than that.
Irish business owners and managers need to demand mediation services from their advisers to help resolve disputes efficiently and effectively and to avail of the significant savings that await.
