INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION 1/3LY
IN CONVERSATION WITH MICHAEL HWANG 29
IN CONVERSATION WITH MICHAEL HWANG SC CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE COURTS OF THE DUBAI INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL CENTRE (DIFC) Sapna Jhangiani, Legal Director at Clyde & Co LLP, in conversation with Michael Hwang SC, Independent Arbitrator and Barrister, Singapore, who is also Chief Justice of the Courts of the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC)
THE DEVELOPMENT OF ARBITRATION IN SINGAPORE
as well as arbitrator; the senior counsel work took up most of my time and arbitral appointments were an extra bonus. I actually worked on more ICC cases than SIAC cases during the 1990s. The SIAC cases that I worked on tended not to be very large; however, towards the late 1990s we did see an increase in the number of SIAC arbitrations. I recall an interesting and very large SIAC arbitration I heard during that period. The governing law was Malaysian Law and it was a dispute between a Malaysian party and a European party about a technology system that the Europeans supplied which the Malaysians rejected on the grounds of technical defects. Both parties apparently employed general counsel from the US who drafted the relevant agreement, and they inserted the dispute resolution clause which was, in my experience, rare if not unique. It provided that there would be full discovery and depositions pursuant to US laws of evidence and procedure. The parties were both represented by prominent American law firms, and the venue of the hearing was moved to New York. Depositions were taken and there were truckloads full of documents. It took three years for the case to come to a hearing, which took place in three tranches. Because of the extensive depositions and American style discovery which had taken place, counsel for the Malaysian party was able to refer to videotaped depositions to contradict the European witnesses’ oral testimony, and to rely on internal emails between the European party’s engineers working on the project showing their doubts about the design of the technology system. The European party’s witnesses were subject to brutal cross-examination, resulting eventually in a settlement. The Malaysian party’s lawyer told me later that his cross examination, which led to the settlement, would have been impossible without full American style discovery and depositions. So there may be a moral here somewhere.
SAPNA As Chief Justice of the DIFC Courts, Head of the DIFC Dispute Resolution Authority, and a very well-known Senior counsel and arbitrator, you are a highly regarded member of the international disputes community. How did your career in arbitration develop? MICHAEL I served as a Judicial Commissioner in the Supreme Court of Singapore from 1991 to 1992. Around this time the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) was established, with the International Arbitration Act being enacted in 1995. In light of this, when I returned to private practice in 1993, my firm suggested that, given my judicial experience, I should explore the world of international arbitration. At the time we were able to learn (to a certain extent) from the experience of international arbitration in Hong Kong, given that it had already established the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre (HKIAC) well before the opening of SIAC. When I retired from my old firm at the end of 2002, I knew that I wanted to go on to develop my practice as an international arbitrator. SAPNA As someone who has watched the development of international arbitration in Singapore, what do you perceive to be the main changes in arbitration practice from then to now? MICHAEL During the 1990s the number of arbitrations that passed through the SIAC was very low. When I returned to private practice in 1993 I was working both as senior counsel
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