Mediator designation + availability

Description

Mediator designation is the EU Platform-to-Business Regulation's small but operationally specific requirement that an online intermediation service identify at least two mediators it is willing to engage with for out-of-court dispute resolution with business users, and publish those mediators in its terms of service. The Digital Services Act extends and parallels the obligation for in-scope hosting and online platform services with respect to user complaints. The mediator does not have to be exclusive to the platform; the practical pattern is to designate two mediators from among the certified consumer-mediation bodies in the relevant member states, document the engagement terms (who pays, what happens if the mediator is unavailable, how the result binds the parties), and reference them by name and contact information in the terms. The piece that surprises operators is that the obligation is to be willing to engage; it is not satisfied by a clause that says the platform reserves discretion to mediate or not. Designation also does not displace the underlying contract or the available litigation paths; it is an additional channel that the business user can invoke. Most platforms discover the obligation when they revise their terms for the first time after entering the EU intermediation perimeter and find that the standard-form terms inherited from US-anchored counsel do not include it.

Applicability

Applies when: business model role is intermediary or mixed.

How predicates are evaluated

Required by (1 regulation)

• EU P2B

  Article 12 — at least two mediators identified in terms; reasonably willing and able to engage, accessible from the location of the business user, operating in the language of the terms; good-faith engagement obligation on the platform.

  Regulation (EU) 2019/1150

Fulfilled by (1)

• In-house build · low effort

ClearLaunch does not accept payment from vendors. Methodology.

Evidence formats

• mediator agreement
• mediator-disclosure section in ToS