To boycott proceedings or not? Recourse against arbitral awards on jurisdictional grounds by different categories of respondents under the Model Law

摘要

The remedies that award debtors have under Articles 16(3), 34 and 36 of the Model Law, and more critically the inter-relationship between those remedies, has attracted much debate. Yet there is a dearth of analysis on how the availability of each remedy may differ according to the award debtor's degree of participation in the arbitral process. Such analysis carries significant practical value for parties in considering whether and to what extent they should participate in any arbitral process when they harbour jurisdictional objections. This article distils Singapore's experience, describing how Singapore has implemented the 'choice of remedies' principle for participating, non-participating, and boycotting respondents with jurisdictional objections, with comparative observations from Hong Kong, England, and New Zealand. This article shows that the ultimate matrix of remedies chosen by Singapore is far from straightforward. The question whether a respondent has participated in the arbitral process is also a vexed one. The analysis in this article begs the question whether in pursuit of harmonization future reforms to the Model Law ought to be considered.