If disputes don’t get settled by negotiation, they will be decided either by court litigation or an alternative type of dispute resolution. The most common other options are arbitration and mediation. The former is often required as the suitable method in commercial contracts, and is fundamentally a private court, while the latter is typically achieved through structured negotiations between the parties, supervised by a third party mediator. These methods can still be difficult: arbitration is almost as costly as litigating, mediation is not essentially sufficient for complex matters, and some claim that opponents can use alternative dispute resolution as a means of ‘bleeding’ money from each other or as covert interrogation.
Practitioners working in the litigation and dispute resolution domain can expect to see some fairly vital changes to the constitutional scenario in the wake of the EU referendum. Wholly domestic court processes are improbable to face impact but litigation and other kinds of dispute resolution with cross-border facets get right affected by the EU legal framework. If, after Brexit, the UK’s legislation were to conflict with that of the EU, there would be a marked drop in efficiency, parallel proceedings may produce conflicting judgements and the enforcement of decisions could also prove problematic. Litigators may also decide that the risk of pursuing cross-border disputes with EU counter-parties is commercially unjustifiable family law solicitors
London has long been a hot favorite forum for international litigation and arbitration but in recent times a number of other financial avenues, including Singapore, Dubai and Qatar, have been establishing English-speaking commercial courts staffed by British and international judges in a bid to challenge London’s supremacy. London’s reputation as a center of urbane financial markets and legal systems might be at risk if the result of the EU referendum sees Europe’s financial center migrate toward the continent, bringing their disputes and the legal services with them.
Today’s businesses are much more watchful of their non-legal obligations and public perception than their forerunners. Future litigation is progressively likely to take into deliberation that a legal or fiscal win might not be considered as a win if it’s publicly believed to be carried in a poor manner.