The Tribunal and mediation

The Small Claims Tribunal uses mediation to help parties settle their dispute before the matter is actually heard by a referee or judge. In fact, the Subordinate Courts website states that this is used extensively in the Tribunal -
see http://app.subcourts.gov.sg/sct/page.aspx?pageid=8617

What is mediation? This is a process where the mediator tries to persuade the parties to settle their dispute without a normal hearing. The keyword here is persuade. He cannot force any parties to agree to the settlement.

The mediation process is meant to be confidential so anything that a party says here cannot be repeated elsewhere. To preserve confidentiality, the mediator is also a different party from the referee who hears the case.

The mediator will try to convince both parties that a settlement is in their best interests rather than an acrimonous hearing where each side makes allegations about the other. Options to satisfy both parties are explored including apologies, partial payment of the claim, and promises to remedy defects or shortfalls in expected services.

In a normal court mediation (not one in the Tribunal), the mediator will often point out the high risk and costs of fighting a case in court with a party having to pay his own lawyer for court preparation as well as time spent in court. In addition, the rule is that the loser of a lawsuit has to pay the winner's legal fees. However, these points will not be relevant to a Tribunal claim.