Insights

By Anissa BOUSSOFARA

The temporary suspension of the majority of judicial activities and the multiplication of difficulties encountered by economic actors, due to the recent health crisis, have generated a significant flow of disputes.
Faced with these disputes, businessmen and their lawyers have the reflex to resort to litigation, whether before state or arbitration courts.

However, at a time when the search for solidarity and stability is felt, essential elements to deal with any kind of crisis, it is time to pacify economic relations and favor alternative methods of conflict resolution (“ADR”). , namely: conciliation and mediation.

It is generally accepted that arbitration is not ADR.3 Indeed, it is a jurisdictional method of settling disputes and the award resulting from the procedure has the value of res judicata.

Other, less common forms of ADR, coming from American practice, exist: the “mini-trial” and more recently, the “med-arb” appeared. The first is “a form of simulated trial intended to allow the parties to come together with a view to finding an amicable agreement” and the second “a form of mixture between mediation and arbitration” whose “formula consists of appointing a person first as a mediator and, then, if the mediation has failed, as an arbitrator (the other possibility being to appoint an arbitrator with the mission of first attempting mediation)”…