Your trusted legal advisors across Africa

Types of alternative dispute resolution

Alternative dispute resolution (ADR) methods have become the preferred mechanism to resolve commercial disputes. The traditional approach to dispute resolution used to be litigation. The popularity of alternative methods of dispute resolution can in part be attributed to the backlogs experienced by courts. This has also resulted in the incorporation of one of the alternative dispute resolution methods into the Uniform Rules of Court. The introduction of the new Rule 41A in March 2020 meant that an initiator of litigation proceedings was required to file a notice asking the other party whether they were amenable to mediation and the other party was required to respond with its own notice, but mediation was by agreement. Recently, the Gauteng Division of the High Court issued a directive introducing mandatory mediation in the Gauteng division and the accompanying protocol.