Content Join OGEMID
 
  • Linkedin
  • Twitter
  • Rss

Transnational Dispute Management

Skip navigation

Transnational Dispute Management

The network for international arbitration, mediation and ADR, international investment law and Transnational Dispute Management

Join OGEMID

Transnational Dispute Management

The network for international arbitration, mediation and ADR, international investment law and Transnational Dispute Management

  • Sign in
  • Subscribe
  • Home
  • Sign in
  • About About
    1. Home
    2. About
    3. About TDM
    4. About TDM
    5. Founding Editor T.W. Wälde
    6. T.W. Wälde
    7. Editorial team
    8. Editorial team
    9. Contributing Authors
    10. Contributing Authors
    11. Subscriptions
    12. Subscriptions
  • Journal Journal
    1. Home
    2. Journal
    3. Browse Issues
    4. Browse
    5. Articles by Category
    6. By Category
    7. Articles by Author
    8. By Author
    9. Advance publication
    10. Advance publication
    11. Specials
    12. Specials
    13. Search
    14. Search
    15. Book reviews
    16. Reviews
  • Legal & Regulatory docs. L & r docs
    1. Home
    2. Legal & Regulatory docs.
    3. L&R by Country
    4. L&R by Country
    5. L&R by Category
    6. L&R by Category
    7. L&R recent additions
    8. L&R recent additions
    9. Search
    10. Search
  • Audiovisual library AV library
    1. Home
    2. Audiovisual library
    3. Audiovisual Library
    4. Audiovisual Library
    5. TDM/OGEMID Interviews
    6. TDM/OGEMID Interviews
    7. Conference presentations
    8. Conference presentations
  • OGEMID OGEMID
    1. Home
    2. OGEMID
    3. About OGEMID
    4. About OGEMID
    5. Suggest a topic
    6. Suggest a topic
    7. Guest programme
    8. Guest programme
    9. Seminar programme
    10. Seminar programme
    11. Browse archive
    12. Browse archive
    13. Search
    14. Search
    15. Join
    16. Join
  • News & Events Events
    1. Home
    2. News & Events
    3. News
    4. News
    5. Events
    6. Events
  • Subscribe
Home > Legal & Regulatory docs.

CWP v CWQ 2023 SGHC 61 - 16 March 2023

  • Sign in to download document
Country
  • Singapore
Year

2023

Summary

Arbitration - Award - Recourse against award - Setting aside

1. It is well-established that the principle of party autonomy undergirds the arbitration regime in Singapore. A facet of party autonomy is that the disputing parties select the arbitrators they wish to make up the tribunal or, at the least, agree on the process by which the tribunal is to be constituted. The flipside of this autonomy is that parties take the arbitrators as they are.

2. It is also well-established that our courts firmly maintain a policy of minimal curial intervention in arbitral disputes, subject to a narrow and exhaustive list of exceptions. A court will not intervene in an arbitral award on the mere allegation by a party that the tribunal got the decision wrong. Under the statutory regime in Singapore governing international arbitrations, a party dissatisfied with a tribunal's award has no recourse to the court's appellate jurisdiction to overturn the decision on its merits. A court may however intervene if, for example, there has been a failure of process resulting in a breach of natural justice.

3. A complaint that a breach of natural justice has been occasioned in the making of an arbitral award can take different forms - one instance where a court may intervene is if it can be demonstrated clearly that an arbitral tribunal completely failed to consider or apply its mind to an important issue or argument that was raised for its consideration and decision. However, for a court to be so satisfied, that conclusion or inference must, as the Court of Appeal reminds us, be a virtually inescapable one (AKN and another v ALC and others and other appeals [2015] 3 SLR 488 ("AKN") at [46]):

46. .. It will usually be a matter of inference rather than of explicit indication that the arbitrator wholly missed one or more important pleaded issues. However, the inference - that the arbitrator indeed failed to consider an important pleaded issue - if it is to be drawn at all, must be shown to be clear and virtually inescapable. If the facts are also consistent with the arbitrator simply having misunderstood the aggrieved party's case, or having been mistaken as to the law, or having chosen not to deal with a point pleaded by the aggrieved party because he thought it unnecessary (notwithstanding that this view may have been formed based on a misunderstanding of the aggrieved party's case), then the inference that the arbitrator did not apply his mind at all to the dispute before him (or to an important aspect of that dispute) and so acted in breach of natural justice should not be drawn.

4. The passage quoted above demonstrates that the bar an aggrieved party needs to cross is necessarily set high.

5. In many a case that has come before our courts, parties have sought to confuse the court's role (some cynics might argue, as a deliberate strategy) by presenting what is effectively a backdoor appeal on the merits in the guise of a process breach, and painting the tribunal's disagreement with an argument as a failure by the tribunal to even consider or understand that argument or the issue at hand. Time and again, the Court of Appeal has warned that the courts must be wary of attempts by an aggrieved party to mount what is, in effect, an appeal in disguise: see, eg, AKN; Bloomberry Resorts and Hotels Inc and another v Global Gaming Philippines LLC and another [2021] 2 SLR 1279.

6. In this application, CWP is the claimant and CWQ is the defendant. The claimant seeks a partial setting aside of a final award dated 4 May 2022 (the "Award") rendered by a three-member arbitral tribunal (the "Tribunal"). For reasons I elaborate upon below, I dismiss the claimant's application.

...

To download this document you need to be a subscriber

Sign in

Forgot password?

Sign in

Subscribe

Fill in the registration form and answer a few simple questions to receive a quote.

Subscribe now

Documents missing? Documents to share? Let us know!

If you know of documents which are currently missing from our Legal & Regulatory database do let us know. You can send them directly to us for inclusion in the database, anonymously or otherwise.
Learn more here

Call for contributions

TDM Call for Papers: Sanctions and International Arbitration: Impact on Substantive and Procedural Issues

Ali Burney, Rinat Gareev, Kiran Nasir Gore, Dini Sejko, Prof. Joel Slawotsky, May Tai

  • Ali Burney
  • Rinat Gareev
  • Kiran Gore
  • Dr Dini Sejko
  • Prof. Joel Slawotsky
  • May Tai

TDM Call for Papers: National Courts as a Forum for the Resolution of Disputes under Article 26 Energy Charter Treaty

John P. Gaffney, Dr. iur Richard Happ,
Lucia Raimanova, Anna-Maria Tamminen, Dr. Catharine Titi

  • John P. Gaffney
  • Dr. iur Ricard Happ
  • Lucia Raimanova
  • Anna-Maria Tamminen
  • Dr. Catharine Titi

TDM Call for Papers: International Investment Arbitration - Environmental Protection and Climate Change Issues

Professor Dr A F M Maniruzzaman, Wendy J. Miles QC, Carla Lewis, Dr Stephen Minas

  • Professor Dr A F M Maniruzzaman
  • Wendy J. Miles QC
  • Carla Lewis
  • Dr Stephen Minas

TDM Call for Papers: The African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA)

J. Chaisse, J. Górski, E. Laryea, M.M. Mbengue, and K. Olaoye

  • Prof. Julien Chaisse
  • Dr. Jedrzej Gorski
  • Prof. Emmanuel Laryea
  • Prof. Makane Moïse Mbengue
  • Kehinde Olaoye
  • More
  • Contribute

Advance publication

Consequences of Not Regulating Third-Party Funding in Commercial Arbitration in Ecuador

24 Mar 2023

D.F. Ibarra Villacís

  • D.F. Ibarra Villacís

Transnational Investment State Arbitration: A New Game-Changer for Global Climate Change Goals

20 Mar 2023

I.D. Valones

  • I.D. Valones

Summary of Young-OGEMID Symposium No. 14: "International Arbitration and International Commercial Courts: Competitive or Complementary?" (March 2022)

3 Mar 2023

E.S. Delgado

  • E.S. Delgado
  • More
  • Contribute

Stay connected

Sign up for our email alerts.

  • Issues
  • Advance publication
  • News
  • Linkedin
  • Twitter
  • RSS

Join the debate

Want to join OGEMID, the leading on-line discussion platform for international dispute resolution?

Simply fill in the registration form to start your trial membership.

Download the app

  1. App store
  2. Google play

The Transnational Dispute Management Journal (TDM, ISSN 1875-4120) and OGEMID listserv focus on recent developments in the area of (investment) arbitration and dispute management, regulation, treaties, judicial and arbitral cases, voluntary guidelines, tax and contracting. Read our Terms & Conditions here, and our Privacy Policy here.

About TDM

  • Terms & Conditions
  • Contribute
  • Subscriptions
  • Contact
  • Help

Other publications

  • Oil, Gas & Energy Law Intelligence (OGEL)

© 2004 - 2023. Published by MARIS.

  • Home
  • Contribute
  • Subscriptions
  • Contact
  • Help