Phillip Street Mediation is a specialist commercial & financial services disputes resolution service provider led by accredited mediator and arbitrator Dominique Hogan-Doran SC FCIArb
Mediation is a sensible option for commercial disputes. Mediation is a quick, cheap, more informal and less stressful option than Court.
For parties in a business relationship, mediation offers: privacy, confidentiality, an opportunity to repair and sometimes enhance the relationship, to reduce non-productive time and redirect managerial time to drive and manage your business.
As a neutral third party, a mediator facilitates parties within a structured negotiation process, identifies issues, evaluates alternatives and helps develop options for resolution.
Courts often refer proceedings to mediation, in order to promote the just, cheap and quick resolution of disputes like: shareholder disputes, partnership disputes, insurance claims, banking disputes, lessor-lessee disputes, franchisor-franchisee disputes, strata disputes, professional negligence claims, estate disputes, and trade practices claims.
Supreme Court of New South Wales referred mediation of four different proceedings by former retail bank employees against their former solicitors (Solicitors for parties: Somerset Ryckmans; Kennedys) (2018)
District Court of New South Wales proceedings between Chinese investors, their Australian business partner, accountant/migration agent and professional indemnity insurer (Solicitors for parties: SHL Associates, ABK Lawyers, Kennedys) (2018)
District Court of New South Wales proceedings between medical services practice & Australian retail bank in relation to alleged cheques frauds by former business manager. (Solicitors for parties: Shine; Kemp Strang) (2017)
Federal Court of Australia proceedings between rural investors and Australian retail bank concerning recommendations to invest in complex structured financial products (Solicitors for parties: Squire Patton Boggs; Allens Linklaters) (2016)
Dispute between professional indemnity insurers and insurance premium funder of architectural business in external administration. (Solicitors for parties: Minter Ellison; Brand Partners Melbourne) (2015)
Supreme Court of New South Wales Commercial List multi-party dispute re treatment of share allocations, contribution adjustments, claims for unpaid directors' fees, fee and profit share claims, & burden of prior costs orders (2014)
Dominique Hogan-Doran SC has been recognised by Doyle's Guide to the Australian Legal Profession as a Leading Mediator & as a Leading Commercial Litigation & Dispute Resolution Senior Counsel.
She has particular knowledge of financial services organisations, having served as a trustee director of a RSE Licensee with $2.7bn FUM, and was a Finalist for the 'Woman of the Year Award' in the 2013 Australian Women in Financial Services Awards.
Certification by the Council of the NSW Bar Association as an accredited mediator under the National Mediator Accreditation System though to 25 October 2018.
Certification by the Council of the New South Wales Bar Association as an accredited mediator under the National Mediator Accreditation System through to 25 October 2016.
Certificate of National Accreditation issued by the Institute of Arbitrators & Mediators of Australia for period 8 February 2014 to 7 February 2016.
Practitioner's Certificate in Mediation issued by the Institute of Arbitrators & Mediators Australia.
It means you should not delay things but make a service appointment at the garage you trust – Phillips Tyres!
Whatever the age of your car, whatever Renault model you drive, we have the perfect service package available for you.
The only direct connection between the car and the road is mega important for your safety. We advise all our customers to come in for a regular tyre check.
It does not cost you anything, and it won’t take long. We will make sure your tyres have enough air in them, have sufficient tread left, are evenly worn (*) and they aren’t damaged.
In case you want to change your tyres, you can buy some via our website. We have cheap Renault tyres in all sizes and for every season available from many different quality brands.
(*) In case your old tyres are showing uneven wear, we recommend a wheel alignment check. Please have a look at our wheel alignment information page for more detailed information.
No problem, just book it with us – online, over the phone or personally at our workshop. Flexible appointments and even emergency appointments are always available for our customers.
Here at Phinge™, we are looking for talented and creative social media creative writers that thrive in an innovative “start-up” company environment. As a social media creative writer, you will develop and create content for print, digital media, or product descriptions. Writers will communicate with leadership, clients, and potential interview sources. Must follow Phinge’s editorial style guide. Excellent writing, spelling, and understanding of grammar is essential to the role. Social media content writers are self-motived, innovative, and creative! If you would like to be part of the biggest revolution in technology in the last 20 years, we would love to hear from you.​
Develop, design, plan and execute media assets and campaigns for Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube and other emerging social media channels.
Oversee production and implementation of social campaigns, regular social media calendar content and real-time marketing opportunities.
Moderate user-generated content and ignite and develop social conversations in partnerships with Community Managers and social media team members.
Lead efforts in the planning, development and implementation of brand voice, social media strategies, editorial calendars and concept ideation.
Collaborate paid media team to ensure alignment between digital and traditional media communications and campaigns.
Exceptional skill with the nuances of social media writing including the use of hashtags, emojis and acronyms
2016 was the year of 'the loyalty wars', the battle of the century between online travel agencies and hotel brands.
NB: This is a viewpoint from Peter O’Connor, professor of information systems at Essec Business School in Paris, and European online analyst for Phocuswright.
Hilton, Marriott, Accor Hotels and Choice Hotels International heavily promoted loyalty club membership-driven book direct campaigns, granting transient consumers substantial discounts in return for instantly signing up to their ‘loyalty’ programs.
Supposedly designed to combat the ever-growing power of the OTAs, many independent analysts however questioned its purpose, effectiveness and long-term effect on hotel profitability.
Unfortunately, this was a battle that in the long run no one could win. Many players have already begun to moderate their positions, and we’re already seeing the emergence of some common ground. The change in behavior is driven by a new, more harmonized outlook.
A scarcity mentality tells us the earth’s resources are finite and that we are doomed to fight each other until the last drop of water, air, or other precious resource is used up. On the other hand, an abundance mentality looks at the world through the lens of opportunity.
Scarcity tells us that there are winners and losers – a ‘zero sum game’. Abundance tells us that we can innovate towards solutions to unlock prosperity, and that a dynamic marketplace focused on multiple winners can in fact be achieved.
As different industry players move their lines in the sand, we may quietly be witnessing the resurgence of such an abundance mentality within the hyper-competitive hotel distribution sector.
Last August, I wrote about true cost of loyalty-driven discounts in order to start a dialogue about how market dynamics have changed.
As hotels, we can adopt a scarcity mentality, villainizing the OTAs all we want over supposedly high distribution costs, regardless of the fact that hotels' OTA costs have decreased substantially over the past five years while the cost of supposedly cheaper direct bookings has increased.
In the hotel industry, we love having a common enemy; someone else to blame for our woes (does Airbnb ring any bells?) and the OTAs have in recent years served as the perfect punchbag. The scarcity mentality was alive and well.
Right now, after years of sitting back whining while the OTAs outpace their growth, the global hotel brands have finally decided to get off their butts and do something about it.
In an effort to encourage customers to book direct, they decided to provide incentives in the form of not only lower prices but also enhanced services such as free Wi-Fi or ‘free’ breakfasts.
But as they’ve rolled out these initiatives, the brands quickly learned that challenging the OTAs is going to require a ton of new investment and many are currently questioning whether this explicit and hidden discounting approach is sustainable in the long term.
Despite claims that all is rosy in the garden, many are coming under pressure from owners and investors alike to clearly demonstrate the effectiveness of their book-direct-in-return-for-incentives approach. Evidence to date suggests that most are struggling to do so.
In my earlier article I investigated the rising costs of distribution by looking at a specific case study using the franchise disclosure document of one of the world’s most recognizable hotel brands.
These include, but are not limited to: rate dilution from discounting, a hefty paid search marketing fee for customers coming from pay-for-performance channels, and the substantial cost of participating in the brand’s loyalty program itself.
As a follow-up study, to try to better understand the impact of loyalty fees across the industry, I did an analysis using the HVS 2015-2016 and 2011 US hotel franchise fee guides.
I looked specifically at brand comparisons between the two years (ignoring any companies not present in both editions), which gave me a sample of 55 major hotel brands across upscale, midscale, and economy segments.
To my amazement I found a 77% increase in loyalty fees between the two year’s averages (normalized on a percentage of gross rooms revenue basis). This means that the cost for hotel properties to participate in such programs had almost doubled over this five year period.
But according to a Kalibri Labs report , this same period saw a significant drop in direct bookings, a fact that calls into question the effectiveness of these ever more expensive loyalty programs.
Perhaps the global hotel brands should follow the OTAs' lead and reduce - or even eliminate - fees on bookings that are not truly being delivered by the brand.
Currently, most hotel brands typically charge fees on a gross rooms revenue basis, meaning that they get their cut irrespective of how much business they actually drive to the property in question.
Surely a fairer scenario would be to only charge owners for bookings delivered by channels ‘controlled’ by the brand in question – a move that would bring hotel brands’ pay-for-performance business model closer to that being used by the OTAs.
If 2016 was about carving up a finite consumer pie, I believe this year will be about abundant mindsets driving new partnerships, and the two largest OTAs are doing just that.
For example, Booking.com acquired various technology providers to create a service offering called Booking Suite which drives direct bookings to independent hotels. Expedia just introduced a free basic revenue management tool called Rev+ and is making some bold moves with chain partnerships.
For example, Expedia is now even sending customers directly to chains through link-offs to their direct booking sites as well as signing up customers for the chains’ loyalty programs, as in the case of Red Lion whose ‘Hello Rewards’ loyalty rates are listed directly on Expedia’s sites.
Red Lion’s CMO, Bill Linehan, was quoted as saying that in the month after launch it saw a 400% increase month over month in Hello Rewards sign-ups with about 25% resulting from the Expedia partnership, clearly showing that by working together, rather than bickering, both parties can grow the size of the pie and create greater value for everyone.
Non-exclusive virtual alliances are the name of the game, as testified by the recent deal between Marriott and Expedia in the vacation packaging arena, and Marriott’s initiative with Booking.com which uses the latter’s content and technology to power some of its low volume country sites such as Marriott.it rather than developing it for themselves.
Instead of wasting time and energy on pointless and often heated battles, finding innovative and imaginative ways to work together is clearly the way forward, with both owners and customers ultimately the main beneficiaries.