The Bracken column is named after Brendan Bracken, the founding editor of The Banker in 1926 and chairman of the modern-day Financial Times from 1945 to 1958.In the current climate, there has been a marked increase in the willingness of stakeholders to litigate their financial services disputes. Given cost constraints, however, there is also a desire to settle financial disputes out of court or in a tribunal if at all possible. It is therefore a pertinent time to examine the attempted harmonisation across EU member states of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) schemes for financial disputes, especially as the results of the responses to the European Commission's December 2008 consultation paper in this area were published in September.