SINGAPORE Law and Practice Contributed by: Chou Sean Yu, Wendy Lin, Monica Chong Wan Yee and Frank Oh Sheng Loong, WongPartnership LLP
Notable arbitration-related proceedings that have been heard by the SICC include Korea v Mason , Deutsche Telekom AG v The Republic of India [2024] 3 SLR 1 and Hulley Enterprises Ltd and Others v The Russian Federation [2025] SGHC(I) 19.
of natural justice occurred in connection with the making of the award by which the rights of any party have been prejudiced. The AA was enacted to align the domestic arbitration regime with the ML, but is not based on the ML and does not give the ML the force of law. Singapore has not yet fully adopted the 2006 amend - ments to the UNCITRAL Model Law. 2.2 Changes to National Law There were no significant changes to the national arbi - tration law in 2024. In 2024, the Ministry of Law commissioned the Sin - gapore International Dispute Resolution Academy (SIDRA) to conduct a study of Singapore’s interna - tional arbitration regime and the IAA. SIDRA published a report on 21 March 2025, making various recom - mendations, including: • giving courts the discretion to make costs orders in respect of only the costs of the arbitration; • introducing a straightforward rule where parties must obtain the appellate court’s permission to appeal against any decision of the High Court applications for setting aside and resisting enforce - ment of awards; and • enacting a new statutory choice-of-law approach for determining the governing law of an arbitration. On 21 March 2025, the Ministry of Law launched a public consultation on the IAA, inviting members of the public to provide views on the issues considered by SIDRA. The feedback received may be taken into account in any future amendments to the relevant leg - islation, including the IAA.
2. Governing Legislation 2.1 Governing Law
The International Arbitration Act 1994 (IAA) governs international arbitration in Singapore. A separate piece of legislation, the Arbitration Act 2001 (AA) applies to any arbitration where the place of arbitration is Singa - pore and Part II of the IAA does not apply – typically, “domestic” arbitrations. Parties may select the IAA or AA by agreement. The IAA gives the UNCITRAL Model Law of 1985 (hereinafter, ML) the force of law in Singapore, with certain modifications including (among others) the following. • Chapter VII of the ML (which addresses enforce - ment of arbitral awards) is excluded, to avoid inconsistency with Part 3 of the IAA, which applies to enforcement of awards under the 1958 New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforce - ment of Foreign Arbitral Awards (the “New York Convention”). • While Article 16 (3) ML prescribes that, if the tribunal rules as a preliminary question that it has jurisdiction, a party may request the relevant court to decide the matter (such decision shall be subject to no appeal). The IAA expands on this to allow for applications to be made to the High Court to decide the matter where the tribunal rules at any stage of the proceedings that it has no jurisdiction, and provides that jurisdictional rulings of the High Court may be appealed with permission of the appellate court. • The IAA introduces provisions relating to the appointment of conciliators. • The IAA introduces two further grounds (in addi - tion to the grounds in Article 34 (2) ML) where an arbitral award may be set aside, namely where the making of the award was induced or affected by fraud or corruption, or where a breach of the rules
3. The Arbitration Agreement 3.1 Enforceability
Under Section 2A IAA and Section 4 AA, for an arbitra - tion agreement to be enforceable in Singapore, it must be in writing; this requirement is satisfied if its content is recorded in any form, whether or not the arbitration
714 CHAMBERS.COM
Powered by FlippingBook