The International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) has named Singapore as the leading arbitration hub for Asia for the fifth year running.
More than 6 percent of new ICC cases last year named Singapore as the seat of arbitration, according to the 2015 ICC Dispute Resolution Statistics.
Under the ICC Rules of Arbitration, parties do not require Singaporean connections to arbitrate in Singapore. They also have the flexibility to choose an arbitrator of any nationality despite the seat of arbitration. In more than 71 per cent of all new Singapore-seated arbitrations filed in 2015, one or more of the parties was not Singaporean, and in half of these cases, a non-Singapore arbitrator was appointed.
In 2015, the ICC recorded the second-highest number of new cases in its 93-year history, with 801 cases filed involving a total of 2,283 parties. The average monetary value in dispute in new cases at ICC rose to $84 million in 2015, up from $63 million in 2014, with the largest dispute valued at over $1 billion.