SINGAPORE Law and Practice Contributed by: Chou Sean Yu, Wendy Lin, Monica Chong Wan Yee and Frank Oh Sheng Loong, WongPartnership LLP
3.2 Arbitrability Under Singapore law, any dispute that the parties have agreed to submit to arbitration under an arbi - tration agreement may be determined by arbitration unless it is contrary to public policy to do so. In Anupam Mittal v Westbridge Ventures II Investment Holdings [2023] 1 SLR 349, the Court of Appeal held that the arbitrability of a dispute is determined in the first instance by the law governing the arbitration agreement, and, where it is a foreign governing law and such law provides that the subject matter of the dispute is non-arbitrable, the court will not allow the arbitration to proceed because it would be contrary to public policy (albeit foreign public policy) to enforce such an arbitration agreement. Further, even if a dis - pute may be arbitrable under the law of the arbitra - tion agreement, where Singapore is the seat and the dispute is non-arbitrable under Singapore law, the arbitration would not be able to proceed (see at [55]). There is no exhaustive list of matters that are non-arbi - trable, but courts have noted that issues which “may have public interest elements” – such as citizenship or legitimacy of marriage, grants of statutory licences, or validity of registration of trade marks or patents, copyrights, winding-up of companies, bankruptcies of debtors or administration of estates – may not be arbitrable (see Larsen Oil and Gas Pte Ltd v Petroprod Ltd [2011] 3 SLR 414 at [29]). In BAZ v BBA and Oth- ers [2020] 5 SLR 266, the court held that the principle of protecting the interests of minors in commercial transactions is part of the public policy of Singapore. 3.3 National Courts’ Approach The Singapore courts will apply a three-stage test to determine the law governing the arbitration agreement (see Anupam Mittal at [62]): • stage 1 – whether parties expressly chose the proper law of the arbitration agreement; • stage 2 – in the absence of an express choice, whether parties made an implied choice of the proper law to govern the arbitration agreement, with the starting point for determining the implied choice of law being the law of the contract; and • stage 3 – if neither an express nor implied choice can be discerned, the system of law with which the
Singapore has not yet fully adopted the 2006 amend - ments to the ML. 2.2 Changes to National Law There were no significant changes to national arbitra - tion law in 2025. In 2024, the Ministry of Law commis - sioned the Singapore International Dispute Resolution Academy (SIDRA) to conduct a study of Singapore’s international arbitration regime and the IAA. SIDRA published a report on 21 March 2025, making various recommendations, 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 in 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. 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 agreement or contract has been concluded orally, by conduct or any other means. In addition, where in any arbitral or legal proceedings the existence of an arbitration agreement is asserted by a party in a pleading, statement of case or any document in circumstances that call for a reply, and this assertion is not denied, there is deemed to be an effective arbitration agreement as between parties to the proceedings. 3. The Arbitration Agreement 3.1 Enforceability
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