Summary

With entry into force of the Conciliation Act on 1 January 2010, the Estonian legal order adopted Directive 2008/52/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 May 2008 on certain aspects of mediation in civil and commercial matters. The impact of entry into force of the Conciliation Act, in practice, can be considered modest. This may be due in part to the fact that the parties to the disputes must become accustomed to the use of mediation.

The Conciliation Act regulates the central aspects of the connection between mediation and civil proceedings, but they do not include principles on the course of conciliation proceedings. From the viewpoint of proceedings, only the essential aspects are regulated. However, in mediation, the quality of an outcome depends on the quality of the proceedings. Therefore, in case of an agreement achieved under a conciliation procedure, it is also important to consider what was going on during the proceedings and before deciding in favour of a conciliation proceeding, it would be useful to have an understanding on how the conciliation proceedings work. The article introduces the nature and course of conciliation proceedings based on the example of a simplified sample case.