In a defined list of disputes, an Italian court will not hear your claim until a mediation has been attempted. Filing is not the first step. No American, British, Irish, Canadian or Australian court puts a private procedure between a claimant and the courthouse door, so the requirement catches foreign clients and the solicitor or attorney advising them. It is a condition of procedibility (condizione di procedibilità), not a defence on the merits — and you can take part without flying to Italy, if the paperwork is ready first.
Which disputes have to try mediation first
The list is statutory, and was widened by the 2023 civil justice reform. What most often reaches an international practice:
- medical and healthcare liability
- insurance, banking and financial contracts
- property rights, boundaries and division of co-owned assets
- residential and business leases, and the lease of a going concern
- condominium (building management) disputes
- inheritance disputes and family pacts
- defamation through the press or another means of publicity
The reform also brought in commercial contracts: franchising, subcontracting, supply, consortium and partnership disputes among them. Check the text in force on the day you file.
Assisted negotiation (negoziazione assistita), a lawyer-to-lawyer procedure, is separately compulsory for road and boat accident claims and for money claims below a statutory ceiling; verify the current figure. A contract outside both lists may still carry its own mediation clause, which the Italian courts enforce. Urgent relief is the exception: if assets are moving, apply for the protective seizure and mediate afterwards.
What happens if you file without it
The claim is not struck out on the spot. The defendant must raise the point, or the judge notice it, by the first hearing; raised later it is lost. Raised in time, the judge gives a short term to start the mediation and adjourns; only if that term lapses unused is the claim declared improcedibile. The failure mode is delay, not a dead claim.
Two traps sit inside that. The mediation must cover the dispute you go on to plead: mediate one claim, sue on another, and the condition is unmet for the second. And when you oppose an Italian payment order (decreto ingiuntivo), the burden of starting the mediation falls on the party opposing — the Supreme Court in full bench had put it on the creditor, and the 2023 reform reversed that. It has been litigated since; confirm before relying on it.
The timetable, and what it does to your deadline
The application goes to an accredited body in the district of the court that would have jurisdiction; a convenient one instead gives the other side something to object to. A first meeting is convened within thirty days, and the procedure is built to close within three months, extendable once by written agreement.
The deadline point is the one to write down. The application interrupts the limitation period from the moment it is communicated to the other parties, not from filing, and a forfeiture deadline is held off once only. Italian periods are short, and that gap is where claims are lost.
Attending from abroad: video link or power of attorney
Parties are expected to take part personally, not through counsel alone. Living abroad can be a justified reason, but it is assessed, not assumed, and should go on the record.
Telematic mediation is provided for by statute, so the meeting can run by video link. The closing record is signed electronically, so a party with no Italian qualified signature must resolve that beforehand. Ask for a workable hour: mid-afternoon in Milan is early morning in New York and late night in Sydney.
A special substantive power of attorney removes the problem, letting your Italian lawyer attend and settle within limits you set. Whether counsel could hold that delegation was contested for years; the reform settled it. It must state the power to settle expressly and set the parameters, or the party may be recorded absent.
Signed abroad, that power of attorney needs an apostille from the right authority: in the US the Secretary of State of the commissioning state, in the UK the FCDO Legalisation Office, in Ireland the Department of Foreign Affairs, in Canada the competent provincial authority since it joined the Apostille Convention in 2024, in Australia DFAT. Then a sworn translation in Italy, in that order, because the translation must cover the apostille. Allow weeks; a company adds proof the signatory could bind it.
What is said in the room stays in the room
Italian mediation is confidential: what is said and offered cannot be used in the later proceedings, and the mediator cannot be called as a witness. It is the local form of a rule you know — the federal settlement-evidence rule in the United States, the without prejudice rule in England, Wales and Ireland, settlement privilege in Canada, the settlement-negotiation privilege of the Australian evidence legislation. You can test a number without it becoming an admission.
The cost rules that should change how you answer a proposal
A party that stays away without justified reason is exposed twice: the judge may draw inferences from it, and financial consequences attach by statute.
Then there is the mediator's proposal. Not every mediation produces one, but a party refusing a proposal that the eventual judgment entirely matches can be left bearing the costs although it won. Entirely is the word doing the work: a partial match does not trigger the rule. Enough, though, that a proposal must be answered on its merits, in writing, rather than on principle.
If it settles, can you enforce it where the money is?
Inside Italy, straightforwardly: an agreement signed by the parties and by all the lawyers, who certify it complies with mandatory rules and public policy, is enforceable without a judge approving it. If the lawyers do not all sign, it needs the court president's approval first.
Outside Italy, a mediated settlement does not travel the way an arbitral award does under the New York Convention — a distinction to weigh when choosing the forum in the first place. The Singapore Convention on mediated settlements is not in force between Italy and most English-speaking jurisdictions, so check before relying on it. The fix is in the drafting, as with any commercial settlement: payment on signature, security you can reach, or a debtor with assets in Italy. How the money is taxed on arrival is for your own adviser — the United States taxes its citizens wherever they live, Canada and Australia tax on residence.
How to start
If a mediation summons has reached you, read the date before the translation. Send us the document and we will tell you what the deadline is, whether the requirement bites on your dispute, and what has to be signed before the meeting. Preparing it is not wasted if it does not settle: the same file serves the trial.
The first consultation is free and it is with a lawyer. None of this decides your case: what it means for you turns on facts we have not seen, and that assessment belongs on your own file.