ARTICLE
Mediation in the wake of Coronavirus – Court Guidance & Cabinet Directives
2020
has been a rollercoaster of a year from mid-winter storms and flooding to the ever emerging threat of COVID-19, court closures and social distancing. If recent WHO announcements and the previous Sars epidemic teach us anything, we are all in this very much for the long haul. Lord Burnett of Maldon, the Lord Chief Justice, has made it clear that the court system will never again operate as it did before the Coronavirus pandemic. Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury, a former President of the Supreme Court, also appeared on Radio 4’s Today programme encouraging parties to consider mediation. We will all have to acclimatise to change and new working practices. We have all seen multiple headlines about Virtual Justice and Remote Hearings. Technology certainly has been pushed to the fore not least in world of Mediation where the use of ZOOM Pro has become the industry standard and default platform for ONLINE Mediation. In the wake of Coronavirus there has been a string of three cases in 2020 in which the parties who refused to mediate were financially penalised by the courts, laying down a marker for more stringent times ahead. Indeed as the Law Society has commented recent cases have provided “a very real economic incentive for parties to say ‘yes’ to mediation, because the price of saying ‘no’ has become rather costly.” Cases Post PGF II Litigation Solicitors will be fully familiar with PGF II which is embedded in the court and pre-action practice landscape. PGF
II itself came within the wake of a number of previous cases. With each new tranche of cases has come increased emphasis on the use of ADR. Amidst the clamour for the revival of the football league season another Football Club entered the legal arena and received a scolding at the hands of the courts. For local football fans fortunately this was neither Southampton FC nor Portsmouth FC but rather a more distant northern cousin. In DSN v Blackpool FC [2020] EWHC 670 (QB) which concerned a somewhat delicate matter involving a football scout, a claim for sexual abuse and vicarious liability, Mr Justice Griffiths stated: “No defence, however strong, by itself justifies a failure to engage in any kind of alternative dispute resolution” echoing the words of the Court of Appeal in N J Rickard Limited v Holloway & Anor [2015] EWCA Civ (unreported) where the Court of Appeal observed that “no dispute was too intractable for mediation.” DSN v Blackpool repeated the earlier observations of Sir Geoffrey Vos C in OMV Petrom SA v Glencore International AG [2017] EWCA Civ 195 at para 39 where he stated: “The regime of sanctions and rewards has been introduced to incentivise parties to behave reasonably, and if they do not, the court’s powers can be expected to be used to their disadvantage. The parties are obliged to conduct litigation collaboratively and to engage constructively in a settlement process.” Continued on next page The Bill of Middlesex | 15
