On 31 March 2020, the Republic of Palau (“Palau”) became the 163th state to accede to the United Nations Convention on Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards 1958 (the “Convention”).1)The authors were engaged by the Asian Development Bank (“ADB”) as part of a team of experts to advise on Palau’s accession to the Convention…

Part I of this two-part blog post summarized the recent judgment of the Singapore Court of Appeal (“SGCA” or the “Court”) in Sanum Investments Ltd. v Government of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (“Sanum v Laos”). This Part II provides some comments on that judgment and its significance, including its impact on future Singapore court…

On 29 September 2016, the Singapore Court of Appeal (“SGCA” or the “Court”) released its much-anticipated judgment in Sanum Investments Ltd. v Government of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (“Sanum v Laos”). In a carefully reasoned decision, Singapore’s apex court reversed a decision of the Singapore High Court, which had previously held that an UNCITRAL…

The Singapore International Arbitration Centre (“SIAC”) published a draft of new investment arbitration rules (the “draft SIAC IA Rules”) for public comment on 1 Feb 2016. They will be finalized on 27 May 2016. The draft SIAC IA Rules are a unique hybrid of modern commercial arbitration rules and specialist investment arbitration rules (e.g. the…

In AKN v ALC [2015] SGCA 18, the Singapore Court of Appeal (“SGCA”) partially allowed a set of three appeals against a High Court decision to set aside a SIAC award. The result of this decision was to effectively allow the setting-aside, but under a more constrained reading of the grounds for challenge under the…

Most institutional rules share a common procedural framework for arbitral proceedings—the origins of which are traceable to the first set of ICC Rules in 1922. This skeletal framework broadly describes the lifecycle of the arbitration, and provides for the order of pleadings, constitution of a tribunal, conduct of proceedings, and making of the award, in…

The availability of expedited procedures providing for fast-track arbitration is by now commonplace under many modern institutional rules; however, the effectiveness of these mechanisms lies ultimately in enforcement and set-aside proceedings before national courts. In AQZ v ARA,1)(2015) SGHC 49. the Singapore High Court recently had to consider, for the first time, a challenge to…

In the recent case of Pricol v. Johnson Controls (Pricol Limited v. Johnson Controls Enterprises Ltd and Ors, Arbitration Case (Civil) No.30 of 2014), the Supreme Court of India declined to intervene in an international arbitration with the SIAC as appointing authority, upholding the parties’ chosen mechanism in a well-reasoned decision which was marked by…

and Luis Miguel Velarde Saffer Last December, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument on BG Group v Argentina – an appeal from a controversial and much-criticized decision of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. The case arose out of emergency actions taken by the Republic of Argentina in late 2001 in the wake of…