Jonathan Fisher QC & Kate Balmer tackle mediation in larger scale tax cases
The use of mediation in civil litigation practice, as a form of alternative dispute resolution (ADR), has become increasingly commonplace in recent years. Most notably, interest has increased following the advent of the Civil Procedure Rules in 1998 and the government-wide ADR pledge in 2001 (renewed last year). Until now, however, the use of mediation within the tax field has been rare in the UK. This position may be contrasted with that in other countries, such as the US and Australia, in which mediation has long been used to resolve tax disputes. In Australia, a leading academic writer (Fayle, Mediation in Tax Disputes (1999)) has recently commented that “there are many instances where mediation may assist in resolving the dispute more equitably, more efficiently, more economically and more satisfactorily, leaving relatively untrammeled the relationship between disputants”.
Notwithstanding, the introduction of express provisions relating to mediation in s 24 of the Tribunals Courts and Enforcement Act 2007 and ADR in reg 3 of the First-tier Tribunal (FTT) Rules
