Seminar UNE- COGITI: New Standard for measurement

​​​​​​​​​The Spanish Association for Standardisation and the General Council for Industrial Technical Engineering of Spain held the UNE-COGITI Conference at the COGITIM central offices on 10 October: "New Standard for Mediation", at which they presented the new UNE 197301 Standard. This standard specifies requirements and establishes criteria to unify the procedures and documents used in civil and commercial, bankruptcy and consumer mediation processes. This Standard seeks to standardise these mediation processes to enable more systemised management, reducing risks and building trust among all the parties involved, in a context in which mediation has become a fundamental tool in conflict resolution. The UNE Committee on Mediation Services, whose secretariat is headed by COGITI, has been entrusted with its drafting. In recent decades, Spain has seen an increase in litigation coupled with greater social complexity, legal awareness and economic development. This has led to the slowing down and rising costs of judicial proceedings, causing them to become inaccessible to many companies and people. Moreover, when sensitive issues are involved, the parties choose not to go to court in order to avoid making the details of the dispute and the judicial deliberations publicly available. In this context, there has been an increase in mediation procedures, which represent an alternative to the traditional judicial system, and a fundamental tool in resolving conflicts in various areas, including civil and commercial, bankruptcy and consumer issues. Speakers at the conference included: José Antonio Galdón, Chair of COGITI; Alfredo Berges, Chair of UNE; María José Costa, Adviser to the Cabinet of the State Secretariat of Justice of the Ministry of Justice; Cristina Hernán, Project Manager at UNE; Francesc Amer, Chair of CTN-UNE 197; Juan Ignacio Gutiérrez, from the Madrid Association of Mediators; Ángel Luis Vázquez and Alberto Velasco, from the General Council of Economists, and Noemí de Córdoba and Israel Barroso, from the Spanish Institute of Chartered Accountants.​​​