Business disputes

Most of my work is transactional: selling a business, buying one, the agreements that hold a company together. Disputes are not my day job, and I would rather say so than take on something that somebody else will do better.

That does not mean you are on your own. I am a consultant solicitor with Nexa Law, and if you instruct me you become a client of Nexa, which means access to colleagues who do this work all the time. I have used them on real matters rather than found them in a directory. You can see who they are.

So if you send me a dispute, one of three things happens. If it is close enough to my own work, a shareholder falling out, an argument about what a sale agreement actually said, I will deal with it. If it is not, I will introduce you to the right colleague and stay close enough to be useful. And if it is not a job for a solicitor at all, I will say that too.

Before you instruct anyone on a dispute

Two things are worth knowing early, because both get more expensive the longer they are left.

The first is limitation. Most contract claims have six years from the breach under section 5 of the Limitation Act 1980, and once that has gone it has gone, whatever the merits. If anything in your situation has a date attached to it, say so when you get in touch.

The second is that the court expects you to have tried to settle before you issue. That is not a formality: the Civil Procedure Rules and the pre-action protocols require it, and a party who refuses to engage can be penalised on costs even if they go on to win. The Practice Direction on pre-action conduct sets out what is expected.

Mediation, and why it comes up earlier than it used to

Mediation is a day, or less, in which somebody neutral gets two sides who have stopped listening into a position where a deal is possible. Nobody decides anything and nobody takes a side. It settles a great many commercial arguments for a fraction of what the next stage costs, and it does it before the costs are the argument.

It is also no longer optional in the way people assume. Since Churchill v Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council [2023] EWCA Civ 1416 the court can order parties into mediation or another form of alternative dispute resolution rather than merely encourage it. So the question is less whether you will end up mediating and more whether you get there at a point where it still saves you something.

I trained and qualified as a mediator years ago, which is useful mostly for understanding what actually moves in a room. I do not take mediator appointments, and I would not be the mediator in your dispute anyway, since I would be on your side of it.

If a commercial relationship is going wrong, send me the details. I will tell you whether it is one for me, which of my colleagues it belongs with, and whether it is worth trying to settle it before anybody starts drafting.