Extra-judicial Mediation System and Practice (Part I of II)

By He Wei and Zeng Ying King & Wood's Dispute Resolution Group

Mediation in China can be divided into three categories: mediation supervised by the people's court, mediation supervised by an arbitral tribunal and mediation without the supervision of a court or arbitral tribunal. The first two categories of mediation share many similarities. Both of them are conducted by particular institutions in accordance with statutory proceedings, and the settlement agreements reached have the same binding force as judicial judgments. These two categories of mediation, because of their "quasi-judicial" nature, are usually collectively referred to as "judicial mediation". Usually such bodies are decision making—and a mediation must give only the parties control over decisions.