Singapore view of arbitrations involving Chinese parties

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The SIAC experience

The Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) has an increasing caseload of disputes involving Chinese companies, and with our ability to run arbitrations in English and/or Chinese, increasing outbound investment by Chinese companies, we are looking at administering more China-related cases in future. In our first column, which will appear in two parts, we share our experience with administering China-related cases, and where appropriate, offer suggestions to corporate counsel and disputes counsel.civilprocedure

Particular to Chinese disputes

Chinese companies like to enter into contracts that have English and Chinese versions, and disputes arise sometimes needlessly where there are discrepancies between the two. A scenario is that the English version says the administering arbitration centre is the SIAC, and the Chinese version points to another arbitration centre. A further provision says that both language versions have equal effect. So you could end up with a situation where it is unclear which arbitral centre has jurisdiction. There could then be an argument that as the arbitration agreement is invalid, jurisdiction would then be with the courts (of the country with the most significant connecting factors), defeating parties’ original intention to arbitrate. As such, as a preliminary matter, we urge parties to ensure that there is consistency in their English and Chinese provisions, especially with the dispute resolution clause.

To our knowledge, there is an express requirement under Chinese law that there is an express indication of submission to a nominated arbitral centre in the arbitration agreement. Sometimes the language of the arbitration agreement is not clear enough as to whether there is express submission; in order to avoid problems with enforcement in future, if this is the case, counsel should address the tribunal on this and apply to the tribunal to have it recorded in the final award that both parties have indicated assent to submit the dispute to the arbitration centre. We also have a suggested clause for Chinese deals where we include express reference to SIAC as the administering centre.

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Arvin Lee, the author, is deputy head (China) and counsel, Singapore International Arbitration Centre

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