Recently, the tragic passing of a Big Law partner in the UK has shed a renewed light on the difficult working conditions in the legal industry, with its brutal hours and high-stress work.

With COVID-19 travel restrictions expected to hold firm for the next few months at least, lawyers are continuing to rely on remote working practices. In the field of arbitration, this adjustment has been rather smooth, as the pandemic accelerates trends already in process, but Francis Xavier SC, regional head of the dispute resolution group at Rajah & Tann and the immediate past president of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (CIArb), says that this also comes with risks.

Two discernible trends include the greater willingness of commercial parties in the region to employ Singapore law as the governing law of their mercantile arrangements and to designate the Singapore International Commercial Court as the forum for dispute resolution.