THE DISPUTE

Birmingham mediation was required for a contracts dispute between the

Birmingham based claimants who sued the defendants for £43,500 in
relation to the supply of jewellery and failure by the defendants to send the
items who claimed that they had got lost in the post. 

The defendants were adamant that this was beyond their control and they
had fulfilled their legal obligations.The claimants felt that the defendants
had not sent the jewellery, did not have it in stock or generally were being
dishonest.

THE SOLUTION
Mediation was entered into reluctantly by both parties, the difficulty both
parties had was they had an ongoing business relationship and relied upon
one another frequently.

The defendants did not want to involve their insurers as this could possibly
cause them further complications, a deal was struck at £30,000, whereby
the defendants agreed to continue to supply the claimants at more
preferential rates than they had previously allowing for any loss to be
recovered over the course of their future dealings.

OUR APPROACH
 The mediation took 4 hours compared to the 5 months this
Birmingham dispute had already gone on.
 The mediation cost each party a  fraction, compared to the
thousands they had already spent on legal fees and the
thousands they would have had to spend had they continued
with Court action.
THE DISPUTE
IT disputes are very complicated and become very expensive. IT Limited
wrote a specific software package for a client, at the time of writing and
implementing it they advised the client to upgrade their hardware as there
could be problems integrating the software with some of their hardware as
it was a few years old, giving them the option to purchase the hardware
through them, or someone else if they could source it cheaper, to minimise
costs the client refused.

The inevitable happened the software only worked on certain procedures

and actions, in other cases it worked ad hoc or not at all. The client put this
down to a training issue, IT Limited advised that under their contract they
had supplied all the necessary training, however as a gesture of goodwill
they would supply 1 days worth of training to iron out any difficulties, they
advised at the time this was indeed a hardware issue and not a training or
software problem.

Months passed and IT Limited heard nothing, they had not supplied the
one days training as the client never got back to them. A solicitors letter
was received to which IT limited responded, advising that this is a hardware
issue, to rectify any process / procedural conflicts new hardware would
have to be sourced either through them or another supplier, then the
software would have to be reinstalled, for which there would be additional
costs.

THE SOLUTION
Letters went back and forth, until litigation was instigated. Mediation was
entered into, IT limited represented themselves and advised what they had
the whole time, ‘we told you this would happen, you did not listen to us’.

To offer a commercial resolution IT Limited offered to provide the new

hardware with a 10% discount and to reinstall all the old software at cost,
with half a day’s training, the client agreed and bore all his own legal
expenses which IT Limited refused to pay.

OUR APPROACH
 The mediation took 3 hours compared to the 6 months this IT
dispute had already gone on.
 The mediation cost each party a  fraction, compared to the
thousands they had already spent on legal fees and the
thousands they would have had to spend had they continued
with Court action.