Felicitas Paller: A short report on mediation in Austria with a special regard to mediation in the Commercial Court Vienna (03.11.2008)
A short report on mediation in Austria
with a special regard to mediation in the Commercial Court Vienna
Although there is a Zivilrechtsmediationsgesetz since 2004 in Austria mediation is in fact seldom considered an appropriate alternative of conflict resolution once proceedings have started.
Whereas mediation is used in family cases –to enhance negotiations concerning divorce- it is in fact unknown in commercial cases.
Therefore we started a project at the Commercial Court Vienna a couple of months ago. Five mediators ( in fact mediators in Austria are divided into a confusing number of interest groups and it is a fairly hard work to check who belongs to which interest group and which aims they pursue ) , the president of the Commercial Court Vienna, a colleague of mine and I are framing a leaflet that should –in the end- contain all the information needed by the parties during proceedings ( as to what is mediation, what costs mediation, how to find a mediator , what happens with the lawsuit during negotiations , will there be a problem of limitation of actions ……).
It is planned to hand that paper out to the parties in cases where the judge considers an alternative conflict resolution reasonable.
This leaflet probably will be completed until the end of the year.
Right now there is a discussion whether the Commercial Court Vienna should give its signet to the paper ( that certainly would enhance the credibility and importance of that paper ) or not.
Talks with the Ministry of Justice are ongoing.
There is another discussion whether a list of mediators should be annexed.
The mediators in our working group proposed a list of about 40 mediators ( all said to be specialized in commercial cases but still untested ), reassured us that the list is agreed with the different interest groups of the Austrian mediators and wish to add it to the leaflet.
I shall report that judges in Austria are reluctant to recommending a certain person ( mediator ) to the parties and do not want to expose themselves to that issue. Liability concerns and the wish to remain impartial can be heard in that discussion.
In Austria mediators can enrol on a “ Mediators list “ that is administered by the Ministry of Justice . They can be admitted to this list if they conform to the premises stated by law ( Zivilrechtsmediationsgesetz ) .One of the premises is that you have to complete a lot of trainings to be cited in the list and to demonstrate retraining after having been admitted to the list.
Right now there are between 3500 and 4000 mediators in Austria facing a very little demand.
To enhance mediation in proceedings it is very helpful to benefit from the experiences already made in other EU countries thus accelerating our own development in that field.
Vienna, 3.11.2008
Felicitas Paller
Commercial Court Vienna
Contact Point in the European Judicial Network for Civil and Commercial Matters
