On June 26, 2019, Singapore’s Ministry of Law (the
“Ministry”) published a consultation
paper seeking comments from the public on six proposals for
amendments to Singapore’s International Arbitration Act
(“IAA”), which governs the conduct of
international arbitrations seated in Singapore. We explain
below the six amendments put forward by the Ministry on June 26 for
public comment.
(1) PROPOSED AMENDMENT 1:
Introduction of Default Nomination Procedure for Arbitrators in
Multi-Party Arbitrations
At present, section 9A of the IAA sets out a default procedure
for the appointment of three arbitrators: each party appoints one
co-arbitrator, and the parties appoint the third arbitrator by
agreement or, if no agreement is reached in 30 days, the appointing
authority appoints the third arbitrator. However, this default
procedure applies only to situations involving a single claimant
and a single respondent: no provision is made for the possibility
of multiple
