Transforming Mauritius in a private mediation centre

MCCI submits proposal on legal framework. The Mauritius Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI) presented a memorandum on the need for a private mediation legal framework last week. The memorandum will be communicated to the State Law Office and other public authorities in an endeavour to encourage government to adopt a legal framework for private mediation and to promote greater awareness and use of mediation among professionals and business operators. The memorandum, which was elaborated by members of the MCCI’s Arbitration and Mediation Centre, purports to propose a legal framework which better defines issues such as confidentiality, the procedure for recognition and enforcement of mediation settlement agreements, the ethical conduct of mediation proceedings, and the mediator’s ethics. Mediation is an out-of-court dispute settlement mechanism which developed countries around the world has been using successfully for the past two decades to resolve various kinds of disputes, in particular business and commercial disputes. Major mediation centres, such as the Centre de Médiation et d’Arbitrage de Paris, claim success rate of mediation is as high as 95%. Advantages of mediation include that it takes usually less time than arbitration or litigation and involves lower costs. Moreover, the process enables parties to reach an agreement on solutions which could not be achieved through an adjudicative process such as arbitration or litigation and which would not therefore be available through the making of an arbitral award or a judicial decision. Barlen Pillay, head of the MCCI Arbitration and Mediation Center (MARC) and Patrick Van Leynseele, a MARC Mediation and Arbitrator, intervened during the media conference to emphasise the importance of having a strong legal framework in place to secure proper practice of mediation. The MCCI held a business meeting with members of a delegation from Turkey on Thursday 17 December 2015 to discuss commercial exchanges between the two countries. The sectors represented were: clothing, construction, film production, energy, health, law services, banking, tourism, food products, real estate, advertising, electronics, navigation technologies, furniture and home textile.