ACTIVITIES

MEDIATION IN INTERCOMPANY CONFLICT
Economic effectiveness through dialogue
CASA LLOTJA DE MAR
8-9 | July | 2004

A Seminar entitled MEDIATION IN INTERCOMPANY CONFLICT was held on 8/9 July 2004, at the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce-Consolat de Mar corporate headquarters, the Casa Llotja, with the goal of promoting quick, effective procedures for consensual conflict resolution between businesses and business owners.

The opening address was given by Mr. Miquel Valls, President of the Barcelona Official Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Navigation, who put the Seminar in its historic context and, at the same time, conveyed the Corporation’s desire to make available to the business community the means and procedure for settling disputes between businesses with skill, celerity, security, effectiveness, and at a proportionate cost.

The Casa Llotja is the historic headquarters of the Consolat de Mar, an institution created in the Middle Ages to represent and defend trade interests, mediating in the settlement of conflicts arising from the merchants’ business activities. Therefore, it is no coincidence that this should be the venue chosen for the Seminar on Mediation. The Chamber of Commerce has always advocated and encouraged the consensual settlement of conflicts as the best path for companies, seeking more effective alternative systems to the Courts, without this entailing any loss of security and effectiveness.

The Programme addressed the management of conflicts between companies; the practical and economic advantages of mediation; the safeguards provided by the Consolat de Mar-Chamber through its management of these procedures; the applicable legal system; the involvement of European and international institutions in mediation procedures; the content of the European Mediation Code and the draft of the EC Directive on the subject; the European Code of Conduct for the neutral mediators taking part in these procedures; the rules of the International Chamber of Commerce and the Mediation provided through the Consolat de Mar.

The speakers were: Michael Leathes, Manager of British American Tobacco’s Intellectual Property Department, who used a real-life case of a company to explain the advantages of this type of procedure. Mark Appel, Vice-Chairman of the American Arbitration Association; Mrs. Mª Mercedes Tarrazón, barrister, mediator, member of the Consolat de Mar and member of the Plenary Session of the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce; Willam Marsh, barrister, international mediator and director of CMI; Meter Rosher, barrister at Clifford Chance Paris; Xavier Muñoz i Puiggrós, General Director of Law and Legal Entities, Department of Justice, Generalitat de Catalunya (Catalan Regional Government); Henrik Nielsen, coordinator of the group of experts for writing the European Commission’s European Code; and Emmanuel Jolivet, General Counsel of the International Court of Arbitration.