mediation

I want to understand what the court's attitude to mediation is these days and if I have to carry on wasting time, energy and money on it when it seems pointless. Can anyone with current knowledge of this advise?

My ex (wealthy, successful) wants to get out of paying the globalised maintenance ordered less than 2 years ago and is manipulating his situation to try and acheive that. He asked me to agree, I said no (for various legitimate reasons I'm not able to replace that income myself). Then he asked me to engage in mediation (with me paying half the fees).

I asked a solicitor for advice and was told I have to do mediation because the courts are stricter about it now than when we divorced in 2023, and that people must now demonstrate that they engaged properly in mediation in case it goes to court or the court will impose penalties.

So I agreed to mediate and had the MIAM. Then it turned out that even before the MIAMs, he got a court date for the first appointment to vary the order. On legal advice, I engaged in mediation anyway and asked him what he wanted from mediation. He said he wants me to immediately and indefinitely agree to take no maintenance. I said I can't do that and that I'd been legally advised that a court would give me a better outcome than that (I chose not to share what I'd been advised at that time as he is very opportunistic and we hadn't shared any disclosure). Shortly afterwards, I invited him via the mediator to make a more reasonable proposal and he came back saying the same, plus that he intends to only pay half the maintenance in April, stop it altogether in May and ask the court to remit the arrears.

On advice, I asked him via mediation to complete Forms E and do full disclosure, he agreed. We have exchanged, and just as in the divorce, he has not provided full disclosure at all, leaving out financial statements and any evidence of his 'redundancy'.

Our next mediation session is imminent and will cost me another £500 which I really resent paying as it's a waste of time. If he was a reasonable, honest person, of course mediation would be a better solution than court. But he isn't unfortunately and is only engaging presumably because he's been told to by his solicitor.

Given that a) he has no intention of genuinely negotiating in mediation to find a reasonable solution (as evidenced by his proposals) and b) he has not even provided the disclosure that could lead to an informed negotiation, what do you think the court would make of me declining to engage in any more mediation?

Thanks if you made it this far.