Mediation is a structured process that through confidential interviews encourages the prevention or the resolution of conflicts. Mediation takes place with the help of a third party who is neutral, impartial, independent and without decision-making authority.
Therefore the mediator’s mission is to listen to the parties, to help them face their diverging points of view in order to reach their own solution to the conflict that pits them one against the other.
Mediation is therefore different from arbitration, a process in which a third party has legal authority, and whose decision carries obligatory power over both parties.
Advantages of mediation:
- Confidentiality: All discussions and all documents exchanged during the mediation interviews remain confidential and can not be reintroduced later on in court.
- Cost: Compared to judicial proceedings or arbitration, mediation is affordable .
- Freedom: Either party or the mediator can decide at any moment to end the mediation.
- Security: Mediation suspends the time limits for the administration of legal action. By beginning mediation, the parties do not thereby renounce their right to present their complaint before the court.
Mediation may be advised by the court, suggested by a judge over the course of hearings, or it may be reached by the convention of both willing parties.
Mediation is a collaborative solution particularly well adapted to address commercial conflicts between firms.
The specific rules of work-related mediation also apply to individual conflicts within the firm.