The Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) has published its Annual Report for 2013, reporting strong caseload statistics for the year.
The Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) has again reported strong case statistics, with another record setting year in 2013, confirming Singapore’s popularity as an international arbitration centre. SIAC’s latest results surpass those achieved in 2012 by all key measures:
- SIAC saw a 10% increase in new cases filed from 235 (in 2012) to 259 (in 2013).
- The value of those new cases amounted to a record S$6.06 billion (nearly double the total value of the disputes filed in 2012), with a S$3.5 billion claim being the highest value claim ever filed at the centre.
In keeping with Singapore’s role as an international arbitration hub, the new cases involved parties from 50 different jurisdictions. The majority of the users were Asian (primarily Singaporean, Indian, Chinese and Indonesian), although American, English and Australian parties also featured prominently. The cases filed primarily covered trade and commercial disputes (41.3%), corporate disputes (22.4%), shipping and maritime disputes (21.6%) and construction and engineering disputes (9.7%).
SIAC appointed 143 arbitrators during 2013, 51% of whom were Singaporean and 21% British, a trend that was reflected in the parties’ own appointments of arbitrators and the choice of governing law in the contracts in dispute.
The results also confirm the popularity of SIAC’s emergency arbitrator and expedited procedure provisions, introduced under the 2010 Rules; a record 19 emergency arbitrators were appointed and 36 requests made for SIAC’s expedited procedure.
In April 2013, SIAC introduced a revised edition of its rules and established the SIAC Court of Arbitration, comprised of 16 eminent arbitrators whose functions include the appointment of arbitrators and determining jurisdictional challenges. SIAC also opened offices in Mumbai and Seoul during 2013 to improve the services to users from these markets.
*A version of this article was originally published by Practical Law Arbitration http://uk.practicallaw.com/country/arbitration