The courts have once again punished a wholly successful party in costs for their unreasonable refusal to mediate – a trend that is only likely to grow.
Barrister and mediator Ben Handy considers the recent High Court authority of Laporte & Christian v The Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis [2015] EWHC 371 (QB) in his latest article.
Introduction
It is now over a decade since the Court of Appeal made it clear, in the case of Dunnett , that parties who unreasonably refuse an offer of mediation would be punished in costs.
They went further shortly afterwards in Halsey, setting out a list of factors that are to be considered where such purchase ativan conduct is alleged.
Though it has been slow to sink in, the message has been hammered home more recently in the cases of Rolf (in 2011) and PGF (in 2014) – in each case the ultimately ‘successful’ party was heavily penalised because they were not prepared to try alternative methods of resolving their dispute without a trial.
On 19th February 2015 the High Court handed down judgment in the case of Laporte & Christian v The Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis [2015] EWHC 371 (QB) and reiterated once more just how highly the Courts have come to value alternative dispute resolution (ADR) in all its guises.