Contract
Mediation

A contract claim between two companies, an alleged breach and claim for liquated damages. £14,000 was being claimed, the dispute had been going on for a few years. The mediation was in person, lasted two hours and settled. Read the testimonial here.

A £140,000 claim was instigated by a freight company against a courier company. It was argued that the sum was due for services rendered. Whereby it was alleged the sum was not due at all. This of course led to a lengthy dispute between both parties. The mediation took place in person, took less than seven hours, and settled.

A breach of contract over the hire of computer equipment between two businesses.  The mediation was in person, lasted a few hours and settled. 

A business which specialised in cargo and logistics brought legal proceedings against a delivery business they had contracted with. They alleged a breach of contract to the tune of over £155,000. The mediation took place face to face, took one day and a settlement was achieved.

Two businesses contracted for the delivery of goods, namely livestock. Having paid, the livestock was not delivered. A protracted dispute then ensued over ownership. The dispute value was just short of £100,000. The mediation took place in person, took less than one day, and settled.

This dispute had been going on for three years. The parties were deep in the litigation process. It was about financial loss and an alleged breach of contract, that occurred when one company was brought out by another.

A costly trial was thankfully avoided. The accused were being sought for a sum of monies in both his own personal capacity and or his role as a director of his former, defunct company. The mediation was conducted over the phone, took just under a day, and was resolved. Read the testimonial here.

The defendant was a printer. Who leased and purchased machines from the claimant. 

The machines were defective. After chasing the claimant to fix the machines, to no avail, she cancelled her direct debits. 

A long drawn out dispute between the two companies led to a circa £12,000 claim being brought against the defendant. The mediation was in person, took place in Walsall and settled after three hours. 

A romantic relationship between two people went very sour. During the time they were together, the Claimant gave in way of loans to the defendant, just over £100,000. She of course claimed this was ridiculous, as the alleged loans, were in fact gifts, and were never meant to be repaid. This led to court proceedings, and a waste of two years as the parties fought it out. The mediation took place in person, settled, and lasted just under one day.

This dispute arose out of work undertaken by the claimants (C) for the defendant (D). That work was undertaken following a very serious fire at the D’s house. The fire caused serious risk to life, and required multiple fire engines acting for hours to bring it under control. The result was very substantial fire and smoke damage to the building and many of the contents in it.

C was a disaster recovery and building repair specialist that provides, as part of its core offering, a disaster recovery service designed to deal with the immediate and subsequent aftermath of substantial fire damage.

In this instance it undertook two types of work for the D to undertake immediate security, repair and cleaning works to the building; and to undertake cleaning services to the building and the smoke damaged contents thereof.

C claimed £24,301.82 from the D, which comprised of £12,423.07 for work carried out in relation to the contents. £11,878.75 relating to the building including clearance, cleaning, repairs and temporary services.

Separately, C provided portaloos at the property which were charged for on separate invoices, which had been paid and therefore did not form part of the present claim. Regarding the works undertaken on the smoke damaged contents of the building, a core element of C’s offering as displayed on the front page of it’s website contradicted some of the items that they further invoiced for.  

The policy regarding authorisation of works was reiterated in conversations by the parties when walking round the D’s house to assess the condition of it and the contents. During the course of those discussions the D was very clear in stating to C that a fully detailed costing of each item to be cleaned would be required a point repeated so often that it almost became a running joke on the day.

This was not merely the action of a homeowner wishing to ensure that he had certainty over his repair costs, but was driven by the nature of a number of the contents. The D had, over time, purchased a number of items that, although appearing to be ones that may be of value and therefore worth restoring / cleaning, were in fact items bought at modest cost and for which they knew that the cost of repairs could exceed the value of the item.

It is at this point that the parties’ positions diverged in a number of respects.

First, the D sought an explanation of the constituent elements of C’s charges and the basis of calculation of them. For example only, they believe that at least some of the charges include fees for clearance of the house when the majority of the work was carried out by D and a labourer he had engaged himself.

Equally a number of items were cleaned without the D’s prior approval. These were in many cases items that it was not economic to clean, or that the D’s would otherwise have decided to replace. As they had relied on the assertion by C that estimates would be provided for all works, and further reiterated that point orally during a meeting, the D did not accept responsibility for those charges.

Items that the D accepted were to be cleaned were not cleaned adequately or correctly. At an inspection at the storage unit in which their property was stored by C having (supposedly) been cleaned, numerous items were found to be unfit or otherwise not in an adequate condition for returning to the property as would be expected had the cleaning services been undertaken correctly.

Another issue was the items were not stored correctly. Items that had been adequately cleaned in the first instance were stored in immediate proximity to items that had not been cleaned, and were therefore re-infected with dirt and / or smoke odours. In another example a refrigerator was stored not properly wrapped and with the door opened allowing dirt to collect inside it. In a yet further example, a leather sofa had sustained water damage from what appears to be a leak in the roof to the storage unit or similar.

The end result is that a substantial proportion of the costs charged for the work on contents should not have been be charged at all (because either the work was unauthorised and not wanted, or not adequately completed) and the D’s were left with a counterclaim that they set off against the remainder resulting from their loss of property that was disposed of and / or replaced. The combination of the reduction in the headline claim and the set-off against the remainder of it was sufficient to extinguish the majority of C’s claim. The mediation took less than four hours, was in person and settled. Read the testimonial here. 

A £200,000 claim over a specialist piece of equipment which was damaged whilst being transported by the defendants. Who advised that the claimant’s could just claim the loss from their insurers.

The claimants advised if anyone should claim from their insurers it should be the defendant. Eventually the parties agreed to mediate, the mediation took place via zoom, took four hours and settled.   

A brought B’s business, incorporating a new company. B shortly thereafter went into administration. C was B’s logistic, delivery, haulage company. Who then started to deliver for A. C then approached A stating that B’s invoices were outstanding. A advised this was nothing to do with them, but would look into it.

C continued to pick up and deliver A’s goods. But after this conversation, he held a large consignment, worth thousands in stock. And several thousands further if the goods were not delivered to A’s customers. Reputation and loss of business were time sensitive.

Under duress A gave C £15,000 to release and deliver his stock. A long and protracted dispute arose between the two, over who in fact C anything, the arrangement over the duress of the release of goods. The mediation took one day, was in person and settled.