Disputes Yearbook 2025:
Alternative Dispute Resolution

High Court orders parties to mediate  

In October 2024, the Civil Procedure Rules were amended to confirm that the court's case management duties and powers extend not only to encouraging but also to ordering ADR where appropriate. 

Since then, the courts have begun to exercise this power in practice. In DKH Retail Ltd v City Football Group Ltd [2024] EWHC 3231 (Ch) (dating from November 2024, but reported in January 2025), the High Court ordered the parties to mediate a trade mark dispute at a pre-trial review despite the defendant's objection that there was no real prospect of settlement and the parties needed a judicial determination. The court did not accept this position, noting that "mediation is capable of cracking even the hardest nuts" – a view which appears to be vindicated by a postscript to the judgment recording that the parties had indeed subsequently settled their dispute.

The decision illustrates the court's broad discretion to order parties to engage in ADR, and some of the factors it may consider when exercising such discretion.

Government consults on implementing Singapore Convention on Mediation 

The Ministry of Justice launched a consultation on the implementation into UK law of the UN Convention on International Settlement Agreements Resulting from Mediation, better known as the Singapore Convention. The Singapore Convention requires member states to enforce settlement agreements that result from mediations resolving international commercial disputes. Refusal of recognition or enforcement is possible only on limited grounds. There are currently nearly 60 signatories to the Convention, with around a third of signatories having also ratified. The UK Government signed the Singapore Convention in May 2023. 

Implementing and applying the Singapore Convention may prove more complicated than signing it. We have previously highlighted several areas where the Convention's provisions are ambiguous or else leave flexibility for enforcing courts to take different approaches. The approach currently proposed by the Ministry of Justice includes the introduction of a new registration process for mediated settlement agreements, with all the powers ordinarily available to enforce a court order being available to enforce a mediated settlement once it has been registered. In other respects, the proposals are lighter touch, with a number of areas to be left to the courts to consider in due course rather than being specifically provided for in implementing legislation. The outcome of the consultation is awaited.