Businesses today, be they in the real estate sector, construction industry, land transaction, among others, are looking to conserve resources and build a sound foundation for future growth and profitability.
However, in all these, disputes seemed inevitable and if not carefully handled, could derail such goals, hence the need to explore other alternative mechanism, apart from litigation for resolving the arising disputes.
To those in the legal profession, resolution, in this instance, mediation, plays a huge part towards helping businesses achieve their overall goals, as it provides a speedy, less expensive and consensual method of resolving commercial disputes of any monetary value or complexity, adding value at every step or stage of a dispute.
These and more, were the thoughts of eminent speakers and participants at the annual Mediation Conference, organised by Messrs Oakwell Partners, last week.
The event that took place in Lagos, had as its theme; “Mediation: A Core Business Process and Catalyst for Growth”, attracted both international and local legal professionals including a renowned international Commercial Mediator, Amanda Bucklow, from the United Kingdom (UK), who has over two decades of mediating complex cross border commercial transactions in the private and public sectors.
In her welcome address, the Managing Partner, Oakwell, Osarieme Ezekiela, a UK accredited mediator herself , while commended the leadership of Lagos State government in recognising mediation as a mainstream justice administration solution, urged participants to be aware from the outset that mediation was not supplementary or subsidiary to other methods of resolving disputes. It is a holistic mechanism on its own which is in sync with the courts as validating authority of course.
In her lecture, Amanda Bucklow, also admonished the audience to recognise that conflict is an integral part of life “therefore, it is how conflicts are managed that is important.”
According to Bucklow, mediation is usually referred to as an Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) mechanism.
“But using of the word ‘alternative’ was wrong. It is suggestive that the mechanism is inferior and or less effective in comparison to litigation which is seen as the core process to resolving conflict; this perception thus sometimes affects its acceptability,” she explained.
The international commercial mediator explained further that mediation skill could be used to negotiate and assess every area of the business process, citing examples of mediation skills she had used to promote the negotiation and execution of complex projects from commencement to completion in 12 weeks.
According to her, the proper use of mediation skill could accelerate and help business communities attain their respective business goals in a cost-effective way and with speed.
In his submission, the Administrative Judge of Lagos High Court, OpeyemiOke,who represented the Chief Judge of Lagos state, OluwafunmilayoOlajumokeAtilade, could not agree less. She was of the conviction that mediation was the future for commercial disputes resolution in modern societies, and that, more than ever before, it has become necessary to let the business community understand the advantages of using mediation.
“Disputes are expected to arise in a society where there are business activities involving individual, small scale and medium scale enterprises, but in resolving these disputes, they should embrace mediation because it saves time and money and promotes healthy and mutual co-existence.
“Unlike litigation through which huge money is lost in the processing of resolving disputes, mediation is less expensive, time is also saved and used to do other useful things, litigants are saved the big and boring jargons from their lawyers”, she said, adding that amicable resolution of cases, especially commercial disputes, boosts investors confidence in an economy.
She also disclosed that the Lagos State judiciary was working out a mechanism aimed to build confidence in the state’s justice system, but lamented that lawyers were busy looking for ways to manipulate the process. “Mediation is not taking away your source of income”, he assured the lawyers, explaining that it rather helps everybody by making cases and their settlement easy.
Experts and sundry stakeholders in the profession gathered recently for the second edition of the Mediation Conference in Lagos recently, insights were offered just as concerns were raised on mediation as an informal conflict process or mechanism for commercial conflicts resolution.
The mediation conference, an annual event orgainsed by Oakwell Partners, a multi-disciplinary Commercial Law Firm, seeks to highlight the advantages and benefits people involved in disputes, civil or commercial, derive from embracing mediation as against litigation in resolving their differences.
To succeed in this crusade, Deji Adekunle, the Director General of Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, canvassed mediation skills for lawyers. He noted that lawyers were often too possessive of case files and would always want to keep those files alife for as long as possible.
Adekunle, a law professor, pointed out however that despite the high points of mediation, it still has its challenges. “Mediation needs the consent of the litigant which some people interpret to mean that he has a weak case that he is not sure to win”, the professor said, adding that the regulatory environment is confusing for many sectors of the economy, and even the regulators themselves have capacity deficit.
and then