PT-2024-BRS-000056 - [2025] EWHC 2325 (Ch)

The jurisdiction of the court to make an order requiring a party to attend and take part in the mediation (or other alternative dispute resolution), despite the then absence of a specific rule in the CPR, was clearly established by the decision of the Court of Appeal in Churchill v Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council [2023] EWCA Civ 1416. This led to the formulation and insertion in the CPR in October 2024 of an express power to that effect, in CPR rule 3.1(2)(o):

“(2)

Except where these Rules provide otherwise, the court may –

[ … ]

(o)

order the parties to engage in alternative dispute resolution”

However, it will be noted that the rule extends only to the parties to the proceedings. The respondent is not (yet) a party. But it would become a party if it were joined as a costs-only party (as the claimants would prefer), or if the two sets of proceedings were consolidated (as the respondent accepts would be sensible): see Wormleighton v Cape Intermediate Holdings Limited [2024] EWHC 1971 (KB), [59], where Hill J pointed out that the effect of consolidation of proceedings is that the claims “proceed thereafter as one claim”. So, the first question with which I must deal with is whether to join the respondent as a costs-only party or to consolidate the claims. If I were to do neither, the question about the mediation order would not arise.