Introduction

Parties reluctant to mediate have felt pressure to do so from the Courts - and have had to support their refusal with very good reasons if they want to avoid sanctions. The latest decision in the Court of Appeal has outlined a number of factors which a court is entitled to take into account in considering whether a refusal is "unreasonable". Has it done enough? Although the concept dates back for many years, the current popularity of mediation is rooted in Lord Woolf's report, Access to Justice, which was published in 1996. The philosophy behind this report was that the ...