Enforcement of Negotiated and Mediated Settlements in the Eu and in the Anglosphere: A Comparative Approach

This article compares enforcement of negotiated and mediated settlements across members of the EU and the ‘Anglosphere’. While both EU and Anglosphere jurisdictions tend to treat a negotiated settlement as a contract the parties can, jointly with the court, transform into an enforceable court order, a practice in Anglo but not civil law is a court order permanently dismissing a case pursuant to a settlement the court does not see. Moreover, EU and Anglo countries tend to have greater differences in relation to mediated settlements. Anglo courts tend to treat them similarly to negotiated settlements, while some EU countries make it easier for parties to obtain court approval of a mediated settlement than a negotiated settlement. The article begins with the enforceability of negotiated settlements as contracts and then compares methods of making negotiated settlements as enforceable as court orders. It then compares Anglo treatment of mediated settlements largely as negotiated settlements with EU jurisdictions that provide a separate right to enforce mediated settlements. Finally, it shows how contrasting Anglo and EU approaches to mediated settlements emerged in Brexit and the Singapore Convention.