Revista da EMERJ - V. 22 - N.1 - Janeiro/Março - 2020

21  R. EMERJ, Rio de Janeiro, v. 22, n. 1, p. 11 - 26, Janeiro-Março. 2020  It fostered a considerable workload, even though at controlled prices, and without costs for public finances. The result is that today’s civil and commercial mediators are working virtually pro bono. Accredited providers for which mediators work, have a cost structure to be covered, while profits have to be split. Fur- thermore, no fee is payed to the mediation provider if one or both parties decide to opt out at the first mediation meeting. All this results in a very low income for mediators. ‘Solo mediators’ are not allowed to operate within this spe- cific legislative framework, which is controlled by accredited en- tities. Certainly, non-accredited mediators (for example, foreign mediators) can mediate cases in Italy, but this will not satisfy the condition of legal action in compulsory mediation matters, and any agreement will not be enforceable, nor it will take advanta- ge from tax benefits that legislation grants. This arrangement is creating, and will create in the future, some troubles for the me- diator profession. With regard to the mediator’s training, a col- lege degree is required, and candidates must successfully pass a course of fifty hours in order to become civil and commercial mediators and to perform mediations in the framework of Le- gislative Decree no. 28/2010, while it is always legal to mediate even outside of this context. At this point, it is still not possible to perform mediations independently, because, as pointed out, only accredited institution that offer minimum capital and orga- nisational guarantees can manage the procedure. So, accredited providers can select their mediators and confer them mediation tasks. Given the fact the controls on compliance have been occa- sional, especially in the early days, it was not uncommon to hear stories of ‘ghost’ mediation providers, who just operated a mail- box and whose sole purpose was to gather mediation requests they knew were already doomed to fail, but that needed (for a small fee) the procedural certification in order to go to court. Moreover, one should consider that in the first years after the reform, a very large number of mediators has been trained and accredited. Therefore, mediators, even the most prominent ones, mediate only a handful of cases per year. Most of them are lawyers