Business growth, preserving relationships and creating value through negotiated resolution of disputes will be the focal point of discussion when stakeholders gather for Oakwell Partners’ annual mediation conference in Lagos next week, officials of the commercial law firm have revealed.
Mediation as one of the alternative dispute resolution processes is gaining ground tremendously because no one wants to go to court ordinarily and also for the fact that court cases or litigations are not only expensive, but also leads to frustration and damages relationships.
For these and other benefits which include creating values by saving time and money, promoting business growth and helping them to achieve their goals, Oakwell has picked up the gauntlet to be creating awareness on this process using its annual conference which makes people understand mediation better and tells businesses that they have no business in court.
As a leading dispute resolution and commercial law firm, Oakwell has been championing the advocacy of encouraging the business sector, government institutions/ agencies, legal practitioners and the public at large to embrace mediation for resolving their disputes.
The firm, which was recently awarded the ‘Best Dispute Resolution Firm 2018’ by Acquisition International, has consistently blazed the trail in promoting mediation as the preferred mechanism for resolving commercial and business disputes and its annual conference has been a useful platform for pursuing and achieving this feat.
The theme for this year’s edition of the conference slated for April 24 at Oriental Hotel, Lagos, is ‘Business has no Business in Court: The Art of Mediation’. It will also be addressing issues relating to conflict prevention and avoidance, risk management and conflict management in commercial disputes.
Osarieme Ezekiel, the Managing Partner of Oakwell, explained the choice of the theme for the conference, saying, “if business is about making money and creating values that lead to growth of the business, anything that could impede that growth should be discouraged”.
“We will be telling people at the conference that there is a process that works and is recognized by the justice administration system; we will encourage them to take their cases out of court and resolve them through mediation because the time they spend in court is part of their bottomline which should be used in growing their businesses”, she added.
Expected at the conference, as Guest Speaker, is Anthony Gross, an internationally renowned Arbitrator and Mediator, who is a co-founder and director of the Strathmore Dispute Resolution Centre. Gross is also a practicing commercial mediator and will be sharing his experience as one of the foremost commercial mediation practitioners based in Kenya.
The keynote speaker at the conference is Kunle Elebute, the National Senior Partner at KPMG Nigeria and chairman, KPMG Africa.
Also expected are distinguished personalities, including Justice Opeyemi Olufunmilayo Oke, the Chief Judge of Lagos State, Adeniji Kazeem, the Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Lagos State, captains of industries and senior lawyers.
Speaking on the imperatives of conflict in human relationships, be it in business, family or community, Ezekiel stated some of the benefits of mediation over litigation as not only time saving but also preserves relationships.
She hopes that, like previous editions, this conference will be impactful, noting that there are still a lot of people out there, including lawyers, who do not understand mediation and how it works which is why the focus of the conference is also on senior lawyers who resist the process and even discourage their clients from embracing it. “We have a situation where a lot of people don’t know about mediation; they don’t understand it and so, don’t want to embrace it.
But this conference will let them know that it does not make economic sense to be in court for years when they can negotiate their way out of a dispute and move on with their life and business”, she assured.
CHUKA UROKO
