Dispute Resolution - Things To Think About Before Taking Legal Action

The London commercial courts enjoyed a record number of cases in 2018-19 with 78 countries choosing to use London for dispute resolution. The Portland, which produces an annual report arising from its analysis of judgments from the London commercial courts, reveals that there was an overall increase of 63 per cent in the number of cases heard with 60 per cent of the litigants coming from overseas. European litigants have surged over the past year and a significantly increased number from Russia, Kazakhstan and the Ukraine have become more prominent in the English courts; no doubt due to the spotlight the UK government has been shining on the oligarchs and billionaires living in London and the question of their unexplained wealth.

White collar crime features highly, perhaps, in part, driven by the Criminal Finances Act 2017, with a 45 per cent increase in civil fraud, being the third most common type of litigation just behind commercial contractual disputes and arbitration challenges.

Despite the popularity of the London courts, there are still a considerable number of potential litigants who seek to settle a dispute by other less expensive and quicker means. Whilst the London court system is far more rapid than that of other countries where cases can be in the court system for many years, access to the alternative routes to settlement is considerably faster than queueing in the court system. Both arbitration and mediation are viewed as credible alternatives court litigation.

Mediation increasingly forms part of a multi-tiered dispute-resolution process and is often employed before resorting to international arbitration. Mediation allows the parties to retain a degree of control of the outcome of the dispute, enables them to create commercial business solutions that suit all parties and an outcome may be reached which enables the continuation of the business...