Making the case for Singapore law 

IT IS no accident that Singapore is the pre-eminent centre for dispute resolution and legal services in Asia today, particularly for arbitration. According to White & Case’s 2021 international arbitration survey, it is the preferred choice of arbitral seat (or venue) in cross-border transactions in Asia, ranking among the top five most preferred venues in all regions, alongside established venues Hong Kong and Paris. The choice of Singapore law as the governing (substantive) law of contracts has likewise grown in tandem, although not to the same extent. In an independent survey commissioned by the Singapore Academy of Law and conducted by the global research company Ipsos Pte Ltd in 2019, Singapore law (29 per cent) was found to be the second most widely adopted governing law in cross-border transactions in Asia after English law (43 per cent). Interestingly, the survey also found that where Singapore was chosen as the dispute resolution venue, the most frequently used governing law was Singapore law (37 per cent).

As they say, Rome was not built in a day, and these achievements are the result of years of planning and concerted efforts by all relevant stakeholders.

In 2021 and 2022, we conducted a study involving transaction (corporate and finance) lawyers from international law firms based in Singapore. We wanted to understand the considerations which influence the choice of Singapore as preferred dispute resolution centre in cross-border transactions, and relatedly, the extent to which the parties’ choice (through their lawyers) of governing law is associated with the choice of dispute resolution venue. We approached these lawyers for their views as we found that lawyers typically (but not always) drive the choice of venue and governing law. In particular, we were interested in determining the extent to which the choice of Singapore law as governing law was driven by the parties’ (lawyers’) choice of Singapore as a dispute resolution venue, specifically Singapore-seated arbitration.