Singapore’s appeals court reaffirms limits of court challenges to arbitration decisions

The Court of Appeal confirmed a previous decision by Singapore’s High Court, which ruled that challenges to arbitral institutions’ determinations must generally be pursued within the arbitration process itself or through a post-award setting aside application, and not the courts.

Alice Wang, an expert in international arbitration at Pinsent Masons, said: “In DMZ v DNA, the Singapore High Court ruled that it did not have jurisdiction to review a decision from the SIAC registrar regarding the date of the commencement of the arbitration proceedings.”

“Only decisions related to the constitution of the arbitral tribunal or the existence of the arbitration agreement could be reviewed by the court. Outside of these two grounds, a registrar’s decision may only be challenged at the enforcement stage,” she said.

“This decision went to the Court of Appeal, the appellant contending that the lower court judge had erred in deciding it did not have jurisdiction to review the registrar’s decision, arguing that there was nothing in the arbitration law which would prevent the court from intervening in such a decision.”

The central issue of the case was whether the court had jurisdiction to the review the SIAC registrar’s decision under the SIAC Rules 2016, following a dispute that arose from oil sale contracts between the two anonymised parties. Following the commencement of arbitration proceedings by DNA, DMZ argued the SIAC registrar had wrongfully or arbitrarily changed its position on the commencement date of arbitration which negatively impacted DMZ’s time bar argument.

Wynne Tay, an expert in international arbitration at Pinsent Masons, said: “The Court of Appeal held that under Article 5 of the Model law, which prohibits the court from intervening in matters governed by the Model law, the word ‘matters’ is to be interpreted broadly to include procedural decisions affecting the progress and conduct of arbitration proceedings.”

“On the facts, the court found that the SIAC registrar’s decision was a procedural determination affecting the progress and conduct of the arbitration proceedings, and so the court was prohibited from intervening in that the decision,” she said.

Wang said: “The court also noted that SIAC Rule 40.2, which provides that parties waive recourse to the court except where the decision pertains to the challenge to an arbitrator or the jurisdiction of the tribunal, is not an unenforceable ouster clause because parties can still seek to challenge an award affected by such decisions before the courts at the enforcement stage. The court therefore found that DMZ had by Rule 40.2 waived any recourse to the courts against the SIAC Registrar’s decision.”

The decision sends a strong message that parties are bound by the arbitration rules they have chosen and cannot seek support from the court outside of the mechanisms provided under such rules and Singapore arbitration laws.