Businesspeople going through divorce should avoid hard-nosed approach: Sarah Manning

There, you might imagine, the similarities cease. Yet experience has taught me that there are further areas of overlap when it comes to resolving domestic or commercial arguments.

It can be common, for instance, to find businessmen and women whose marriages have ended in divorce using the same hard-nosed negotiating techniques which might have brought their firms success in discussions about how best to divide joint marital assets.

In my opinion, it is usually a grave mistake.

There is, however, an alternative.

Dispute resolution methods have deservedly earned more support in recent years as a way of unpicking delicate family law disagreements about finances and children.

I am even convinced that entrepreneurs can improve their business skills by paying attention to those who have seen the benefits of dispute resolution at first-hand.

Mediation has, of course, been in use for a number of years.

Faced with delays in the judicial system, successive governments have been keen to encourage parties in dispute to settle their differences away from the court.

Before being able to take a case before a family judge, individuals have for some time been required to attend a meeting - a Mediation Information and Assessment Meeting (or MIAM, for short) - setting out the merits of dispute resolution.

In 2022, responses to a Ministry of Justice consultation on extending mediation bore out what many family lawyers already knew; namely, that some people viewed their MIAM as a ‘hurdle to jump’.

From April, changes to the rules governing what happens in the family courts come into force, meaning judges can pause proceedings and compel such individuals to go back to an assessment meeting.

If they still believe that such methods are not being taken seriously, they have the discretion to make a costs order against those not committing to the process.

Mediation in a commercial context is voluntary unless both parties have already committed to it in a contract.

It is incredibly flexible, though, and - another plus point for families or firms is that mediation - is confidential, something of great importance to businesses large or small trying to keep rows out of the spotlight.

Recent figures produced by one of the main UK training bodies, the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution (CEDR), show that approximately £20 billion worth of business disputes cases are mediated each year.

Furthermore, it calculated that mediation saves companies some £5.9 billion in ‘wasted management time, legal fees, lost productivity and damaged relationships’ each year.

Even before the latest rule changes, countless families have discovered that mediation can be immeasurably better than the stress, cost and conflict which are associated with court proceedings.

I feel that it would be in the interest of business to follow their lead and realise the huge advantages of stepping out of the court queue and seeing the other side.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Sarah Manning is head of mediation for Hall Brown