Samenvatting

It is often assumed business mediation in The Netherlands is not used to its full potential. This article reports on 17 interviews with lawyers from leading Dutch business law firms about their considerations regarding mediation. Most reasons mentioned to turn to mediation are in line with the advantages of mediation described in the literature. Unique positive considerations are: (i) mediation may serve as a substitute for confidential discussions between lawyers and (ii) a mediator may help to sidetrack the sub-standard lawyer on the other side. Reasons mentioned to refrain from mediation are: (i) attempts to resolve the conflict have already been made at various hierarchical levels of the companies involved; (ii) for lawyers with adequate negotiation skills a mediator has little added value; (iii) parties require a formal judgement; (iv) mediation implies some sort of compromise; (v) lack of trust between parties; (vi) not knowing any sufficiently skilled business mediators.