In this article the authors describe briefly the legal aspects of liquidation of an estate and the alternative way of mediation. Besides that they investigate what should better be done before the estate will be liquidated. It turns out that also in that case the facilitation of mediation is a wise choice.

Charline Ampe explains the workings of a Belgian 2019 statute, that has made insurance premium income tax-deductible as long as the policy provides that mediator fees and other qualified professionals’ fees will be borne wholly by the insurer.

The hospital sector is not only confronted with the challenges of technical and digital medicine (AI), but also with the expectations of increasingly more talkative patients and their relatives. Luc Van Bauwel introduces you to and testifies about the way in which the ombudsman service of an important hospital group in Antwerp evolved from mere complaint handling as an ombudsservice on the basis of principles of mediation to anchoring the ideas in the liars of management, doctors and other employees; he gives an overview of how the professional ombudsman organized his self and how the surrounding other stakeholders perceived this relatively new ‘ombudsman’ service, which was established by law; how patients have experienced this form of conflict management in the past 15 years, which has been monitored inside the care institution twice in the last 15 years; in the end, he testifies how the acquired/gained trust has grown, as a result of which he now participates on board level in an active role from the very beginning of developing and implementing changes, in the ever-present processes of change, in particular aimed at the doctors associated with the organization.

The cost of conflicts in the Netherlands between civil parties or individuals and the government add up to more than 12 billion Euro. For this calculation, a framework has been developed to distinct between three cost categories: Subject (parties) cost, System cost (e.g. court) and Consequential cost. The latter category represents more than 50% of the total cost, the majority of which are born by commercial parties and employer. The government bears 12,5% of the total cost. The impact on insurance companies could not be estimated but is suspected to be substantial. It are these three parties who in concert should fund further investigation and develop initiatives to reduce the financial and human cost of conflicts. It is to be investigated which incentives are required to make this game change to take place.

The Netherlands has a long history of alternative dispute resolution in the area of education. Recently, empirical research by ‘Onderwijsgeschillen’, the largest organization for dispute resolution in this field, has lead to the successful introduction of mediation in certain types of alternative conflict resolution. In this article, Hilde Mertens, managing director of Onderwijsgeschillen, describes this research, the practical implementation of its findings, and the positive impact of mediation in conflict resolution in education.

In the Commercial Court of Ghent a 5th chamber has been created in each division, with the view to proposing an alternative dispute resolution method, such as a conciliation in front of and with the assistance of the judge or a referral to an external meditation.
The author points out that files can be directed to this chamber not only at the time of introduction of the court case but also at the time the procedural calendar is set after the respondent has filed the first written submission. Even after the pleadings and after an interlocutory judgment has been rendered, the 5th chamber of the Commercial Court can still refer the matter to an external mediation.
All cases in the field of construction, internal companies disputes and commercial agency can also be automatically referred to this chamber.
The author believes that is it not the task of a judge to act as a mediator because judges are trained to decide themselves about disputes and because they do not have enough time for a mediation. However, the creation of the 5th chamber could give a boost to external mediation knowing that 75% of the attempted mediations end successfully with a settlement.