Should mediators (& mediation) be trusted? Tony Allen reports
An article in NLJ last September asked if mediators can be legally trusted, and this needs an answer (“Can you trust a mediator?” NLJ, 23 September 2011, p 1288).
During a mediation of a reasonable provision claim from an artist’s estate, the mediator brought to the claimant the defendants’ offer of a cash sum plus one of the deceased’s painting, saying that the painting had been professionally valued at £80,000 “If sold at auction”, producing a written valuation obtained by the defendants the previous day. The offer was accepted by the claimant “in reliance on the mediator’s representation that the valuation was a market valuation” (see Clay v Lenkiewicz Foundation (Plymouth County Court 9PL05124)).
However, the valuation was for insuring the cost of purchasing a similar painting if lost or destroyed, rather higher than market value, so the claimant started fresh proceedings, seeking damages over the allegedly material misrepresentation which induced the mediated settlement.
The new proceedings settled before trial, but the parties agreed to disclose what happened during
