Justice Philip Jeyaretnam: Welcome Remarks at SICC Conference 2025

SICC Conference 2025 

"Welcome Remarks"

Tuesday, 14 January 2025

The Honourable the Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Singapore,

The Honourable Chief Justice Dato Steven Chong, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Brunei Darussalam,

The Honourable Justice Syamsul Maarif, Chairman of the Development Chamber of the Supreme Court of Indonesia,

The Honourable Justice I Gusti Agung Sumanatha, Chairman of the Civil Chamber of the Supreme Court of Indonesia,

The Honourable Justice Tan Sri Datuk Nallini Pathmanathan, Judge of the Federal Court of Malaysia,

The Honourable Justice Alfredo Benjamin Sabater Caguioa, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines,

The Honourable Professor Jan Paulsson, Judge of the Bahrain Court of Cassation and President of the Bahrain International Commercial Court,

The Honourable Judges and Judicial Commissioners of the Supreme Court of Singapore,

Judges and court officials from foreign judiciaries,

Deputy Attorneys-General,

Distinguished guests

Colleagues, ladies and gentlemen,

1.     Welcome to the SAL SICC Conference 2025. With this conference, the SICC commemorates its 10^th anniversary. As the theme of the conference notes, this anniversary takes place against the backdrop of a shifting world. As we take stock of our progress over the past decade there is undoubtedly much to celebrate – and this is so even though there is more work to do, which is true of course of any field of human endeavour. The SICC has carved out an important role in anchoring Singapore as a leading global hub. One piece of evidence that this is the case lies how many of you are here today. The room is packed. More than four hundred. This includes almost a hundred delegates who have come to Singapore from 19 overseas jurisdictions. That there are so many Singapore-based lawyers is an expression of pride in our legal institutions. The fact that so many of you have travelled from, in many cases, a very long way away, is a testament to Singapore’s success and shows that our success is a success for the world. That mutual success thrives on openness. In offshore cases, foreign lawyers can represent their clients before the SICC. In all cases, the SICC can hear submissions on foreign law directly from counsel qualified in that foreign law as an alternative to the traditional method of expert opinion evidence. Of course, this is not just about openness but also about the quality of justice – it is an important part of giving international business confidence and trust that they have the option to instruct counsel of their choice, with as few regulatory barriers as possible. Nonetheless, the majority of counsel appearing in the SICC are Singapore-qualified, including in cases where the only connection with Singapore is the contractual choice of SICC as the court of jurisdiction. This demonstrates how Singapore-qualified lawyers benefit from the growth of the legal sector, a growth that continues apace. This growth is achieved in part through greater openness, in appropriate cases, to non-Singapore qualified lawyers.

2.     I sense in the room an air of expectancy, and a buzz of excitement. I promise that what comes after me will more than fulfill your expectations. But before I cede the floor to Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon, I would like to make two big points and then three small points. One big point concerns how easy it is to enforce Singapore judgments around the world without there being any re-opening or relitigation of the merits. The second concerns the SICC’s role in relation to international arbitrations seated in Singapore.

3.    International business seeks fair, efficient and just adjudication of commercial disputes. But getting judgment is not enough. There must be effective recognition and enforcement of commercial judgments. SICC judgments, which are superior court Singapore judgments, are broadly enforceable around the world without any relitigation or reconsideration of the merits on which judgment has been given. The four principal methods for enforcement are:

        a. Enforcement under the 2005 Hague Convention on Choice of Court Agreements;

        b. Enforcement by way of registration in the courts of countries with whom Singapore has arrangements for 
             reciprocal enforcement;

        c. Enforcement under the common law cause of action on a debt;

        d. Enforcement under a civil law procedure.

4.     For the first, the countries of the European Union and the United Kingdom are signatories to the Hague Convention. For the second, Singapore has arrangements for reciprocal enforcement through the Reciprocal Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Act with Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Hong Kong SAR, India, Malaysia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Sri Lanka and the United Kingdom. The Supreme Court has also entered into Memoranda of Guidance relating to the enforcement of money judgments with several jurisdictions.  Turning to the third method, namely common law enforcement, Singapore judgments have been enforced summarily in, among other jurisdictions, Canada⁽¹⁾ and the USA⁽²⁾. Finally, for the fourth method of enforcement under a civil law procedure, Singapore judgments have been enforced in, among other civil law jurisdictions, China⁽³⁾, Japan⁽⁴⁾ and Vietnam⁽⁵⁾.

5.     The big picture is that judgments of the SICC may be enforced in all major jurisdictions around the world without relitigation or reconsideration of the merits.

6.     I turn then to international arbitration. On this topic, I have three points. The first is that the philosophy of the courts in Singapore is to apply the law, aligned with the UNCITRAL Model Law, so as to protect and promote the process and integrity of international arbitration. We strive for the Goldilocks outcome: not ‘too hot’ and not ‘too cold’ when it comes to setting aside awards. Instead, we strive to be ‘just right’. We achieve this as I have said by following the law, and in doing so we apply such policies as (1) seeking to give effect to parties’ broad intention to arbitrate disputes effectively when construing arbitration agreements and (2) reading arbitration awards generously and in context. We are not grading awards for As or Bs. We do not give out prizes for the best written awards. All that matters for our purposes is whether the award gets a passing grade, by which I mean that it must meet the requirements of a fair hearing and come within the jurisdiction of the tribunal. Nonetheless, it is important to protect the integrity of the arbitration process by intervening where mandated by law and only where mandated by law.

7.     My second point is that business is concerned with the entire life cycle of the dispute. We encourage arbitrators to proceed expeditiously. We also recognise that awards may be written under time pressure, and they must be read in that light. When an arbitration award is challenged, it comes to the court after one to two years of a full-blown dispute. And so we are committed to managing challenges efficiently and quickly. When a challenge is filed, we typically dispose of it within six months at first instance and within a further six months for the appeal.  These are of course typical times, and there will be exceptions where a case is particularly complex and so takes longer to dispose of.

8.     My third point concerns the value of combining the experience and expertise of Singapore judges with international judges from leading common law and civil law jurisdictions.  In a coram of three hearing an arbitration challenge, especially one that has some aspect of a system of civil law in it, the SICC would typically bring together a Singapore judge, an international judge from a common law jurisdiction and an international judge from a civil law jurisdiction.  From my own personal experience, I have seen how valuable this combination is when it comes to understanding and evaluating the case in front of us. Indeed, as Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon mentioned at the Opening of the Legal Year yesterday, their perspectives and contributions have sharpened our own ideas on how to refine and improve the processes of the SICC and their presence on the court has been a critical factor in enabling the SICC to earn the trust and confidence of its users over the past decade.

9.     Before I conclude my opening remarks, let me make three small but important points:

        a. First point. The SICC thrives on feedback from practitioners and users. We have also instituted a Users’ Council that has proved very helpful in providing a standing mechanism for consultation. In that same vein of feedback, I should also mention that the Singapore International Dispute Resolution Academy (“SIDRA”) is conducting its international dispute resolution survey for practitioners and users across the globe. Respondents to the 2024 SIDRA survey, including practitioners, in-house counsel, businesses from 26 countries, had voted the SICC as the most used international commercial court globally. The QR Code for the forthcoming edition of SIDRA’s survey is on-screen now and will appear periodically during the conference. Do take part in the survey.

        b. Second point. Singapore judgments are now searchable via an AI-assisted search portal at search.pair.gov.sg. This portal is accessible to anyone free-of-charge. It incorporates AI tools that will help summarise cases and find relevant cases on the same topic.

        c. Third point. There will be a book commemorating our 10^th anniversary published later this year by Academy Publishing, co-edited by Francis Xavier SC and myself. We will reconvene for another celebration when the book is launched.

10.     In conclusion, a terrific treat lies in store for us over the next day and a half. There are four panel sessions, and tomorrow opens with a special address by Professor Dirk Hartung on AI and the Law. This afternoon, we are delighted that Minister K Shanmugam SC has generously agreed to be cross-examined by Cavinder Bull SC in what promises to be a wide-ranging Fireside Chat. This evening, our gala dinner is graced by Senior Minister Lee Hsien Loong, and he has kindly agreed to speak to us as well. Next up this morning, we are honoured to have Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon deliver his keynote address. Chief Justice is the prime mover behind the establishment of the SICC. It is part of his vision of developing and adapting the justice system to meet the needs of different bodies of users fairly, efficiently and justly.

So I invite you all to buckle up as the crew move to their take-off stations. We are ready to fly, with Chief Justice in the cockpit. 

^{(2) See, for example, Kim v Co-op Centrale Raffeisen-Boerenleebank BA 364 F. Supp. 2d. 346 (SDNY, 2005).}

^{(3) See, for example, Giant Light Metal Technology (Kunshan) Co Ltd v Aksa Far East Pte Ltd [2014] 2 SLR 545 which was relied and enforced by the Nanjing Intermediate People’s Court, Jiangsu Province in (2016) Su 01 Xie Wai Ren No. 3 on the basis of the principle of reciprocity; the Wenzhou Intermediate People’s Court, Zhejiang Province, in Oceanside Development Group Ltd v Chen Tongkao & Chen Xiudan (2017) Zhe 03 Xie Wai Ren No. 7 which recognised a Singapore High Court decision in August 2019; and the Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court in (2019) Hu 01 Xie Wai Ren No. 22 which recognised a monetary judgment by the Singapore High Court in July 2021.}

^{(4) See, for example, the judgment of the Tokyo District Court, January 2006 (Heisei 18), Hanrei Times No 1229 which concluded that a judgment of the Singapore High Court had satisfied all the requirements in Art 118 of the Civil Procedure Code of Japan and enforced the Singapore judgment}