Alessandro Pieralli, Head of the Italian Desk of Maluquer Advocats, Arbitrator and Mediator for several institutions, have commented the new Spanish Mediation Law on Legal Today website.

The Law 5/2012, of 6 of July on mediation in civil and commercial matters was published the past 7, July, 2012 in the Official Spanish state gazette (B.O.E.) The text, except for minor modifications, is very similar to the text of Real Decree 5/2012, published the 6 of March of 2012 that transposed the Directive 2008/52/CE in the Spanish legal system. In general, the comments to this new text had been mainly positive. Nevertheless, from our point of view, the Law 5/2012 leaves many questions open (e.g. which training for mediators?) and it does not introduce any substantial measures to improve the mediation (e.g. tax benefits). In other words the legislator lose a great occasion to really boost the mediation in Spain.