The State of Commercial Mediation in Finland
Keywords:
commercial mediation, alternative dispute resolution, Mediation Directive, Finnish Bar Association, out-of-court mediationAbstract
Mediation in commercial disputes is minimal in Finland. Although there is an established regulatory framework for commercial mediation both in the European Union and at the Finnish national level, parties to a dispute appear to prefer other dispute resolution methods. This paper adopts a two-fold strategy to explore the possible reasons for this phenomenon. The first part outlines the current regulatory framework on commercial mediation and its implications on Finnish commercial mediation. The second part focuses on commercial mediation practise in Finland. This part looks into earlier studies regarding what methods of dispute resolution Finnish businesses and their external dispute resolution advocates tend to resort to. Also, interviews carried out with professionals of the Finnish commercial mediation sector and other experts in Finnish dispute resolution are used to map out some further reasons for the current state of commercial mediation in Finland. This examination produces three categories of reasons for the limited use of commercial mediation in Finland: the regulatory framework, the attitudes ingrained in corporate culture and reasons related to the organisation of commercial mediation.
