A number of decisions in the United States courts confirm that there is such a thing as bad faith mediation. Those are considered in this high court judgment.
While those judgments are instructive, it is necessary to recognise the distinction between voluntary and coercive mediation.
High Court Rule 41A is constructed on the premise
Superimposed over ordinary voluntary mediation, where a party can withdraw at any stage without potentially attracting any adverse consequences, is the judicially sanctioned High Court Rule 41A procedure obliging the parties to consider a non-adversarial resolution to a dispute which is already before the courts.
The provisions of rule 41A are consistent with the understood
In this Gauteng High Court judgement, the court provides some useful comments on the application of High Court Rule 41A requiring litigants to attempt to mediate their dispute, and the question of bad faith mediation. This is helpful, considering the embryotic stage of the rule and the paucity of case law or literature on