Speech by Minister of State, Ministry of Law and Ministry of Transport, Mr Murali Pillai SC, at Breakfast Launch of the SIDRA Survey 2024 Final Report

28 AUG 2024

Professor Lee Pey Woan, Dean of the Singapore Management University (SMU) Yong Pung How School of Law

Professor Nadja Alexander, Director of the Singapore International Dispute Resolution Academy (SIDRA) at SMU

Justice Japar Dimaampao, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines

Friends and Colleagues

Our Distinguished Guests

Ladies and Gentlemen

Introduction

  1. A very good morning to you. All the important messages have been delivered by Nadja, so between Nadja and the launch of the survey, I would make my speech very short.
  1. It gives me a great pleasure to be here this morning, to support SIDRA – one of the key actors in the international dispute resolution landscape in Singapore.
  1. Very happy to be amongst so many friends of SIDRA, who made the effort to be with us today, especially after the networking drinks session last evening! Nonetheless, I saw a good number of you here very early, so I admire your stamina!

Personal Impression of SIDRA Survey

  1. We are gathered here today, to launch the SIDRA Survey 2024 Final Report.
  1. When I first received SIDRA’s invitation to speak at this event, I had not yet joined MinLaw. For those coming from overseas, I am the most inexperienced Minister of State in the Cabinet, because I was just sworn in on 1 July 2024.
  1. One day, I received an email from one of the MinLaw officers, recommending a long list of events I should attend during the Singapore Convention Week, and this event was one of them. I readily agreed, because I could see the value of such a survey – both from my practitioner’s perspective and I had about 30 years’ practice, and also from the government’s perspective. Hence, I wanted to support it in my small way.
  1. Indeed, my view was reinforced, after I took a look at the survey reports – not just this third edition, but the first and the second editions in 2020 and 2022. I must admit that I did not read cover to cover, but they are very detailed reports, and totalling about 300 pages! This tells you how comprehensive this survey, and the analyses are. Kudos to the team! I was mentioning to Dean just now, that the team is young and energetic too. They did all the heavy lifting. Please join me to thank them.
  1. From the headlines and the graphs that I saw, I can readily appreciate the potential value that it can bring to different groups of stakeholders.

(a) First, to the government, obviously, which was why MinLaw commissioned the survey in the first place. It, not only tells us which aspects are important, and need attention, but also gives us a quantitative value to them, allowing us to make data-driven decisions and policies.

(b) Second, to the providers of dispute resolution services, such as the Singapore International Mediation Centre (SIMC), Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC), ICC Court of Arbitration, AAA International Centre for Dispute Resolution, and the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Centre.

(i) It tells them the level of satisfaction that users have over arbitration, mediation, or litigation as a mechanism.

(ii) While the survey is not specific to any institution, it gives them an idea which area they should work on. For instance, time and cost have been perennial issues in arbitration. You can see that they have been classified as “High Importance” but “Low Satisfaction” in all the three editions of the report. So we must work on these areas.

(iii) These are areas that the institutions can see how improvements can me make, perhaps through their processes, technology, or other means – just don’t leave it to the lawyers!

(c) To the external counsel, because it tells them what their clients want, and whether there is a mismatch in expectations between them, as the report distinguishes the responses of client users and external counsel for many questions.

(d) Fourth, to the client users, i.e. the businesses themselves. It tells you which forum is widely used by other users, because this survey is based on experience, and not perception. This is something unique to the SIDRA survey.

(e) And finally, even to ancillary service providers, like third party funders and tech providers, with the broadening of the survey, to include questions on these areas.

  1. While I have attempted to briefly describe how each stakeholder group can benefit from the survey, the benefits are by no means mutually exclusive. It is all interconnected. For example, when a service providers improves its services, it benefits both the client users and external counsel. When the government enhances the regime as a result of the survey, it positively impacts other parts of the ecosystem too.

Singapore’s Contributions in International Dispute Resolution

  1. Through this survey, we hope that Singapore can contribute in some way to advancing international dispute resolution around the world.
  1. We have tried to play our part, where we can, in various ways.

(a) For example, the Singapore Convention on Mediation, which is the reason why we are all here this week. Because of the Convention, we now have a uniform and efficient framework for international settlement agreements resulting from mediation. This allows for mediation to become a viable tool to resolve cross-border disputes. We are honoured to have led the negotiations, and to host the signing ceremony back in 2019 – that has been 5 years. It was a historic moment that is still vivid in the memories for those who were involved then. I see some of them here, in the table here in front of me.

(b) Our dispute resolution institutions also constantly innovate, to address some of the concerns that users have – as highlighted in the survey – and these innovations oftentimes get propagated.

(i) One example is Maxwell Chambers. Before we established Maxwell Chambers in 2010, and I remember it used to be the Traffic Police headquarters – I know this because I was a policeman before I became a lawyer – there were no other facilities, housing hearing facilities, and institutions and firms, together. Today, many cities have such integrated dispute resolution complex, because they also see a similar need.

(ii) Yet another example is SIAC’s Early Dismissal procedure. It was the first major arbitral institution to do so, and today, it is provided for in the rules of many arbitral institutions as well.

(c) We also take a collaborative approach to sharing our experiences with one another. We all can learn from one another. Most, if not all, of our MOUs with our counterparts have an area of cooperation in international dispute resolution.

  1. We do all these, because we recognise that international dispute resolution exists to facilitate global trade and commerce – ensuring that commercial parties have a fair, efficient and effective means of resolving their disputes.
  1. Different parties, different disputes will require different forums, different mechanisms, and different forms of support. Therefore, they will need choices – choice of seat and venue, mechanism, institution, neutrals from around the world. You will, in fact, see this manifest in the survey results.

Conclusion

  1. Before I end, I would like to congratulate SIDRA once again, on the report.
  1. We all know that it is not easy to conduct a survey, especially one such as the heavy duty SIDRA survey that goes in depth, as this requires time and effort on the part of the respondents. Frankly, more often than not, when you get a survey in your inbox, the first instinct is to delete it immediately.
  1. So, kudos to SIDRA for managing to get a sizeable number of respondents, to make the findings robust. And also many thanks to those amongst the audience, who may have responded to the survey, and resisted your first instinct. Your support means a lot to SIDRA, and to us.
  1. I hope all of you have been enjoying the Singapore Convention Week events so far, with the cooperation of the weather, and that you have managed to gain some insights, catch up with old friends, and connect with new ones. If you haven’t, there are still three days left, for you to catch up. With so many activities and events happening this week, I am sure you will be able to find something relevant for you.
  1. Thank you for listening to me, and thank you to SIDRA for inviting me to speak. Have a lovely day ahead. Thank you very much!

Last updated on 28 August 2024