Mediating Commercial Disputes: A Call to Action in Hong Kong

Mediation has failed to flourish in Asia like arbitration, despite earlier market predictions. Julian Copeman, Mai Tai and Anita Phillips discuss the results of recent client research on commercial mediation and the outputs of the Hong Kong Global Pound Conference to assess what is required to bring mediation into the mainstream for commercial parties in Hong Kong.

Mediation has the potential to resolve disputes in a quick, cheap and confidential manner. For commercial parties, who are usually keen to resolve conflict privately, with minimal disruption to management time and in a way that can preserve ongoing business relationships, mediation should be manna from Heaven. Despite being promoted since the mid-1980s, it is only in the last decade that mediation has become a regular adjunct to litigation in Hong Kong.

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