Clip length/Date:(16:40XXmin - 10/24/09)

Summary: IDN 80 guest Stefano Azzali explains the business conflict resolution innovations used by the Milan Chamber of Commerce’s Court of National and International Arbitration. The Italy-based regional mediation and arbitration provider is a lot more versatile than its name suggests. Azzali, who is the chamber court’s secretary general, describes how mediation has become the arbitration court’s biggest growth area, and how the institution has expanded to offer arbitration and mediation serving particular nice markets between Italian (or European) companies, and their trading partners in Egypt and China.

It may be that regional arbitration institutions are well positioned to promote a variety of mediation–arbitration services, and it appears that this approach is paying off for the Milan court.  Azzali's organization reported receiving 320 requests for mediation in 2006, of which 55 resulted in the offer to mediate being accepted and actually taking place. And 90% of those cases settled.

Moreover, of the 265 cases that did not go to mediation, 55 were because the parties settled shortly after one of them proposed mediation, which would support an argument that just offering to mediate often will trigger a settlement.

As Azzali notes in IDN 80, mediation requests soared last year to more than 500.  That was more than the number seeking arbitration at the provider in 2008, which also has been growing at a faster clip than has been reported by the major international institutions.

So, roughly, for each dispute that goes to arbitration before the Milan Court of Arbitration, another is settled after proposing mediation.

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