The Singapore International Dispute Resolution Academy held a webinar “Conflict of Laws in BRI Disputes: A Comparative Approach” on 14 July 2020. Panelists Darius Chan, Christopher Boog, and Patrick Zheng discussed conflict of laws issues surrounding the determination of the law of the governing contract, the law of the arbitration agreement, and the competing choices of law in interim measures from the common law, Chinese, Swiss and German law perspectives.

The Singapore International Dispute Resolution Academy (SIDRA) launched its International Dispute Resolution Survey 2020 Final Report (IDR Survey) on 3 July 2020 via webinar.  The IDR Survey is commissioned by the Singapore Ministry of Law and administered by PwC South East Asia Consulting, and examines how businesses and their legal representatives make decisions about cross-border disputes and their choice of dispute resolution mechanisms (arbitration, litigation, mediation, and hybrid mechanisms).

Professor Nadja Alexander (Director, SIDRA) and Shouyu Chong (Research Fellow) have contributed to the 2019 Singapore Academy of Law Annual Review of Singapore Cases, by writing the inaugural chapter on Mediation and Appropriate Dispute Resolution. The chapter highlights a number of important Singapore High Court and Court of Appeal judgments, deciding on matters related to mediation and ADR.

SIDRA is pleased to launch its International Dispute Resolution Survey Final Report 2020. The Survey findings reflect the preferences, experiences, practices and perspectives of international dispute resolution users around the globe, and the respondents are all either client users (corporate executives and in-house counsel) or legal users (lawyers and legal advisers) who engage in cross-border commercial dispute resolution.

Why is international commercial arbitration more popular amongst legal users (lawyers and legal advisers) than client users (corporate executives and in-house counsel)?

Why is cost a key, but not crucial factor in the choice of dispute resolution mechanism amongst users?

What is the key factor influencing choice of arbitrator amongst users?

What is the most important factor amongst client users in selecting mediation as a dispute resolution mechanism?

SIDRA is pleased to welcome Rachel Tan to the SIDRA family.  Rachel was formerly a Foreign Service Officer at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a Singapore-qualified lawyer joining us from private practice as Research and Development Operations Lead.

Her full bio is below.

SIDRA Director Nadja Alexander, together with Lela Love and Michael Leathes, has written the introduction to "Seven Keys to Unlock Mediation's Golden Age". The introduction can be found here: https://www.mediate.com/articles/leathes-keys-intro.cfm

SIDRA Director Nadja Alexander gave a presentation on "The Singapore Convention on Mediation: A Commentary", which a book co-authored with SIDRA Research Fellow Shouyu Chong at an event organised by the Singapore International Mediation Institute (SIMI) and IMI - International Mediation Institute on 3 June 2020.

SIDRA will host a webinar on the conflict of laws in BRI disputes on 14 July 2020 with practitioners Patrick Zheng and Christopher Boog providing insights from the Chinese and Swiss perspectives, and with Prof Darius Chan providing comparative remarks from a common law lens. The event will be moderated by Allison Goh, formerly counsel with the Singapore International Arbitration Centre handling China-related disputes. The sign-up details are in the attached flyer.