SINGAPORE: Singapore's Law Minister K Shanmugam said
Singapore will continue to develop the arbitration sector and be
pro-arbitration. It will also move in line with industry
needs.
He was speaking at the opening plenary session of
the 21st Congress of the International Council for Commercial
Arbitration.
Mr Shanmugam told the international legal fraternity
that the Centre of International Law and the National University of
Singapore's law faculty will be setting up the Singapore
International Arbitration Academy later this year. It is the result
of collaboration between leading arbitration practitioners and
scholars from around the world.
Mr Shanmugam is confident that the academy will contribute to the
development of expertise in international arbitration, in a region
where the need for such expertise continues to grow.
Giving an update on the Singapore International Arbitration Centre
(SIAC), he said it handled 188 new cases last year. Of these, 135
were international cases fully administered in accordance with
SIAC's rules.
By contrast, the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre
administered a total of 41 new cases in 2011, including domestic
cases.
Mr Shanmugam said this year is already a better year.
In the first five months of 2012, the SIAC handled 118 new cases,
double the number handled in the same period last year.
The total value of these cases were over S$2 billion. This exceeded
the total value of cases handled by the SIAC for the whole of last
year, which stood at S$1.3 billion.
-CNA/ac