In 2004 two brothers co-founded a credit card payment processing company, Gravity Payments, Lucas sued Dan for several hundred thousand dollars which Dan had claimed in expenses.

Dan denied the claims and said they were a fair reflection of his input and what was payable in the market at the time, Gravity had a policy of minimum wages being $70,000 per annum so maybe the expenses claims didn’t look quite so out of touch as they do to you or I.

After closing arguments and while waiting for the decision of the judge the parties requested time to go to mediation to end their dispute.

You might expect that when time and effort has been spent getting parties to court and hearing all the evidence that a judge is going to say that an attempt at mediation at this stage is too little, too late, but no the judge, Theresa B Doyle, stood the parties down with a stern warning that the mediation was to be entered into in good faith and said that she would give judgment if no decision was made by 7/7/16. As reported in the Seattle Times

More often than not if parties request mediation a judge (whether in the US or in this county) will stop the court process and allow for time for the parties to try and agree to a decision.

Your or your company’s dispute might not be worth as much as the $26,000,000 in dispute here but that does not mean that an attempt at mediation could not save you thousands of pounds and hours of stress.

If you would like to discuss arranging a mediation to resolve your commercial or individual issue contact Northwest Mediation at ed.johnson@northwestmediation.co.uk or on 07931318347

Ed is an Accredited Civil and Commercial Mediator with a vast range of experience of commercial and private disputes