UIA Asia Pacific Regional Meeting

#UIAHongKong2027

Mediating Asia’s Deals – Commercial Mediation as a Strategic Tool in Cross-Border Investment and Trade Disputes

Asia-Pacific has become the centre of gravity of cross-border investment and trade – and, inevitably, of the disputes that come with it. Joint-venture deadlocks, post-M&A claims, supply chain and distribution failures, technology transfer and IP leakage, and disputes triggered by regulatory, tax or sanctions exposure now routinely involve several jurisdictions, several languages and several legal cultures at once. In a fragmented trade environment, litigation and arbitration alone rarely preserve what the parties actually came for: the commercial relationship and the value of the investment. Mediation is an alternative dispute resolution mode, provided it is designed with the same rigour as any other dispute resolution mechanism.

Hong Kong hosts the headquarters of the International Organization for Mediation (IOMed), the first intergovernmental body dedicated to resolving international disputes through mediation, established by a convention signed in Hong Kong on 30 May 2025 and inaugurated in 2026. In Mainland China, the State Council’s Regulations on Commercial Mediation took effect on 1 May 2026 and the revised PRC Arbitration Law on 1 March 2026. Across the region, the Singapore Convention on Mediation continues to gain contracting parties, while Hong Kong offers a mature statutory framework and a direct enforcement channel with the Mainland. For anyone advising on Asian deals, the mediation landscape of 2027 is not the one of five years ago.

Mediation, however, is not one system but many. In some jurisdictions it remains entirely voluntary; in others an attempt at amicable resolution has become a precondition to bringing proceedings, or a court may direct the parties to it. Some legal systems have codified mediation only in the last few years; others have practised court-annexed mediation for decades. The confidentiality of the process, the role a mediator is allowed to play, the authority a representative must hold in order to settle, and above all the route by which a signed settlement is enforced, differ markedly from one system to another. The programme is built around that diversity rather than around any single jurisdiction: each session asks how the same two questions – how a settlement is reached, and how it is then made to hold – are answered under different legal traditions. Practitioners from any jurisdiction will recognise their own practice in the discussion, will be able to measure it against others, and will leave with tools that serve them at home as readily as in their next cross-border matter.

Held immediately after the Opening of the Legal Year 2027 and hosted at the premises of the Law Society of Hong Kong, this UIA Asia Pacific Regional Meeting brings together practitioners, accredited mediators, institutional representatives and in-house counsel from across the world. Over one full day and one morning, the programme moves from the dispute map to process design, from clause drafting to enforceable settlement outcomes, combining panels, a drafting clinic, a small-group case clinic and an in-house roundtable held under the Chatham House Rule.

We look forward to welcoming you to Hong Kong!