Cross-border Commercial Mediation: The Way to the Future, 10 June

This event featured three speakers- Lubna Shuja, Christopher Newmark and Diana Wallis - who shared their views on cross-border mediation. They discussed a wide range of topics, touching on:

• Mediation in the EU-UK TCA: what are the rules? has anything changed? what can we do to make mediation acceptable as a commercial dispute resolution in Europe?
• The role of commercial mediation in cross-border dispute resolution: how does it compare with arbitration? what are its advantages and disadvantages? is competition between litigation, arbitration and mediation inevitable or can we imagine a world where different types of dispute resolution can harmoniously co-habit?
• The Singapore Convention
• Mediation v Litigation: can consumers and SMEs in the UK and Europe be made less litigious? What are the consequences of the possible permanent loss of Lugano?

The panel of speakers included:

Lubna Shuja is the Vice President of the Law Society of England and Wales. She is due to become the first Asian and first Muslim President of the Society in 2022. She will also become only the 7th woman to take the post since the Law Society was founded in 1825. Lubna has been a solicitor since 1992 and a mediator since 2005. She is dual qualified as a civil and family mediator and works on all types of conflicts, including contested probate, property issues, contractual disputes, family breakdown and employment problems. Lubna’s legal experience covers a variety of areas, including personal injury, litigation, wills and probate, contractual/debt claims, professional negligence and family related issues.

Christopher Newmark is a partner with Spenser Underhill Newmark LLP, a London-based practice specialising in international arbitration and ADR. He has wide experience as both an arbitrator and a mediator. He sits regularly as chairman, panel and sole arbitrator under the rules of the leading arbitral institutions and in ad hoc proceedings, and was the first emergency arbitrator to be appointed under the 2012 ICC Rules of Arbitration. He conducts his mediation practice through CEDR Chambers, one of the UK’s leading groups of mediators. He is a mediator and arbitrator panellist for Sport Resolutions UK and a member of the panel of mediators of the Lausanne-based Court of Arbitration for Sport. 

Diana Wallis was an MEP for Yorkshire and the Humber for 13 years, and also served as Vice President of the European Parliament for five years and as President of the European Law Institute from 2013 to 2017. After qualifying as a solicitor, she worked as a partner in London law firms where she developed a cross-border litigation practice which she later brought to Hull firm Rollits. Diana originally joined the Law School in the 1990s, lecturing part-time in comparative law and European business law, and helping to develop the Comparative Law module which is still taught today.

The recording of the event is available here: https://youtu.be/TIZ6lvd2yVM.