First 'no settlement, no fee' offer for commercial mediation clients

A commercial mediation company set to launch next week is claiming to be the first to offer clients mediation on a 'no settlement, no fee' basis.The City-based InterMediation - which will target businesses in the City directly through their in-house lawyers, rather than through firms of solicitors - will use a panel of 100 mediators including lawyers from CMS Cameron McKenna, Eversheds, Barlow Lyde & Gilbert, Edge Ellison and Shoosmiths, and accountants BDO Stoy Hayward.It is the latest in a string of mediation companies established in the City over the past year.

'No settlement, no fee' has long been considered unsuitable for mediation services, because of the financial incentive it would seem to place on the objective mediator to achieve a result.However InterMediation says it has put a number of key safeguards in place to protect the integrity of the mediation process.

Chief among these is that the mediators will be paid by InterMediation regardless of the outcome of cases, ensuring that they have no direct financial interest in achieving settlement.

The company will also offer more conventional fee-paying alternatives which are not dependent on the outcome of cases.InterMediation was recently selected as 'national partner 2000' for the Law Society's Commerce and Industry Group, and will use this link to market its services directly to in-house counsel at major UK companies.

It is offering a free dispute audit to companies as part of this initiative.InterMediation will also operate a pupillage programme to give members of its panel relevant hands on experience.InterMediation's chief executive Peter Ashdown-Barr - a former management consultant who is an accredited mediator through the Centre for Dispute Resolution (CEDR) - said: 'Businesses are becoming increasingly unhappy with time-based billing and would prefer to pay for results.' Anthony Fincham, a partner at CMS Cameron McKenna and a CEDR accredited mediator, said: 'One factor behind the low take-up of mediation services has undoubtedly been concern about costs thrown away if the process fails.

"No settlement, no fee" is an imaginative proposal which should help to address that concern and thereby fill a void in the market-place.'

Jeremy Fleming