Mediation in its various forms continues to evolve as an alternative to litigation.
Ontario’s new Commercial Mediation Act, 2010, which took effect last October 25, introduces some welcome features to this collaborative dispute resolution process generally, one in which the parties opt to have a mediator, who cannot impose any particular outcome, help them resolve the dispute.
A helpful and unusual feature of the new legislation is that it permits the parties to apply it to their mediation in its entirety or to apply only particular parts of it to certain aspects of the mediation.