According to the Law on Mediation, mediation is any type of arbitration, regardless of the term, concerning dispute resolution through a mediation procedure where the parties to the dispute are provided with an option to resolve it through negotiation, in a peaceful manner, with the assistance of one or multiple licensed mediations, with the aim of achieving mutually acceptable solution in the form of written agreement.

The principles and standards of mediation, which render it more attractive than other methods of alternative dispute resolution or the courts, play a major role in dispute resolution, especially in resolving economic disputes. The principles of mediation are the voluntary nature of mediation, equality of parties, impartiality and neutrality of the mediator, confidentiality, privacy i.e. exclusion of the public, no access to information about the mediation procedure, procedure efficiency i.e. inexpensiveness, efficiency and expediency, and fairness of the procedure.   According to the Law on Mediation of the Republic of Macedonia (“Official Gazette of the Republic of Macedonia” no. 188/13, 148/15, 192/15 and 55/16), mediation is especially employed in proprietary, family, labor, trade, consumer and insurance disputes, disputes in the area of education, environmental protection, disputes related to discrimination, as well as other disputes where mediation is suitable to the nature of the dispute and could assist in its resolution. The provisions of the Law on Mediation apply in criminal disputes, provided their application is not excluded with a special legislation.

By adopting the Law on Changing and Amending the Law on contentious procedure (“Official Gazette of RM” no. 124/15) a change of Article 461 has been made with Article 47 of the consolidated text of the Law on contentious procedure which reads as follows: “In the commercial disputes, when it comes to financial claim the value of which does not surpass a sum of 1,000,000 denars and upon which the procedure is initiated with a complaint in front of a court, the parties are obliged, before submitting the complaint, to try to solve the dispute by mediation. When filing the complaint, the plaintiff is obliged to submit a proof issued by a mediator that the attempt to solve the dispute with mediation has failed. The complaint to which the proof stated in paragraph (2) of this Article is not attached will be rejected by the court.” This provision of the Law entered into force on February 2016.

According to the new Law on mediation and its changes and amendments (“Official Gazette of the Republic of Macedonia” no. 188/13, 148/15, and 55/16), the mediation procedures can be conducted exclusively by mediator to whom a license for performing mediation activities pursuant to Article 46 of the Law on mediation is issued by the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Macedonia- Board for providing, monitoring and assessing the quality of mediation-related activities. The mediator works pursuant to the Law on contentious procedure and the above stated legal provision and the mediator conducts procedures for settling all types of disputes that can be subject to mediation for which the parties will express will to settle the dispute via mediation.

The dynamics of the businesses, the trend of intensive reduction of the costs, the increase of the efficiency, the technological benefits with a possibility of instant transfer of information and the mobility in all segments of life impose the need to surpass the traditional court proceedings and to look for new ways for efficient dispute and conflict settlement by initiating procedures with efficient modes of settlement, and mediation is one of them.

The Economic Chamber of Macedonia supports mediation with the main objective to popularize this efficient mode of out-of-court dispute settlement. By popularizing the mediation the insufficiently long and expensive court procedures will reduce an the effectiveness in surpassing the conflicts in the stances of the parties will be surpassed by finding solutions acceptable for the both parties and their future cooperation since this procedure is credible, which is not the case with the highest part of the disputes conducted within a public court procedure.

Hence, pursuant to the needs of the companies, the Economic Chamber of Macedonia, as the biggest and most numerous businesses association in the Republic of Macedonia, starts to create and offer a new service in its portfolio of activities, i.e. introduces support for providing mediation services both for members and non-members, in accordance with the above stated provisions.