How do I take a delivery platform to mediation?
Restaurant chains in Europe have a defined path here and it runs in a specific order. Regulation 2019/1150 requires platforms to operate an internal complaint-handling system, and then to name “two or more mediators” in their terms for disputes including those the internal system could not resolve. So mediation is step two rather than step one, and arriving there without having used step one skips the process the regulation sets out first. The work that actually decides the outcome happens before either step.
Step one: exhaust the internal complaint process
Article 11 requires the system to be “easily accessible and free of charge for business users” and to ensure “handling within a reasonable time frame”. It accepts complaints about the platform’s conduct, not only about technical faults.
File in writing, with the site, dates, what happened and what you want. Give the complaint a reference of your own and use it in every message after, because step two has to point back at step one and platforms do not reliably issue references of their own.
Foody, for example, undertakes in its partner terms to answer in writing “no later than 30 working days from its receipt”, and requires the complaint to describe the issue “with reference to specific details”. That second requirement is typical and it is where vague complaints die.
Step two: identify the named mediators
They are in the terms already, chosen by the platform in advance. Read the clause, note the bodies, and check whether the terms say anything about how costs are shared.
Then notify the platform in writing that you wish to proceed to mediation under the relevant clause, referring to the complaint reference from step one and the response you received or did not receive.
What do I actually take into the room?
A pattern, a cost, and a specific outcome you are asking for.
A pattern means dated incidents by mechanism, not a narrative. A cost means a defensible figure built on a baseline of comparable periods, not a theoretical maximum. A specific outcome means the thing you want, whether that is reinstatement, a commercial adjustment, a change in how a rule is applied, or advance notice in future.
A request framed around acknowledgement is harder to act on than one framed around a specific outcome, so it is worth deciding in advance what you would accept.
Where does the evidence come from?
Half from the platform and half from you, and your half has to have been collected in advance.
The platform’s half is its statements of reasons, which Article 4 requires it to give “on a durable medium”, and whatever its complaint process produced.
Your half is the record of when each listing was actually not orderable, taken from the customer side, because that is the only place the fact exists outside the platform’s systems. Kitchain (kitchain.co) captures it per site and per platform continuously, so by the time a mediation notice is being drafted the evidence is already a year old and already dated.
Is it worth it?
For a single incident, no. For a systematic problem across an estate, frequently yes, and often the preparation alone resolves it.
That is worth knowing before deciding whether to start. Assembling the material forces you to state the problem precisely, and a precisely stated problem is often answerable without a formal process at all.
What if the platform is exempt?
Article 12(7) exempts providers that are “small enterprises within the meaning of the Annex to Recommendation 2003/361/EC” from the obligation to name mediators.
For the national-scale delivery platforms in European markets this is unlikely to apply, but check rather than assume, particularly with smaller local marketplaces where it may.