Singapore Court of Appeal: Annulment of an ICC award

The appeal in DJO v DJP (2) DJQ (3) DJR [2025] SGCA(I) 2 stems from a decision of the Singapore High Court to set aside an ICC arbitral award rendered in favour of the appellants. The High Court found breaches of natural justice due to extensive copying from prior awards. The Singapore Court of Appeal confirmed the annulment of the ICC award, as most of the award was found to be “copied and pasted” from other cases.

The Court of Appeal found that the arbitral tribunal copied 212 out of 451 paragraphs from two previous awards. These arbitrations involved the same respondent and were also presided over by the same arbitrator, but had other co-arbitrators and counsel. The copy-pasting led to use of wrong contract terms, application of incorrect legal principles (application of Indian arbitration law for interest and costs instead of Singapore law (IAA)), and inclusion of arguments not made in the arbitration as well as more than 60 authorities not cited by the parties.

The Court of Appeal therefore found a breach of natural justice, resulting from the fact that the tribunal had used prior awards as templates without independently considering the specific facts and arguments of the present case and also, by including content copied from earlier matters without even checking factual and legal discrepancies. Hence the Court concluded that the award was fundamentally flawed and not just limited to isolated mistakes. In view of these considerations the Court affirmed the setting aside of the entire award.

The key takeaways are that even where similar issues recur across arbitrations, each must be independently decided on its own merits. Copying from past awards, especially without transparency or opportunity for parties to address, violates natural justice. Tribunal members must have equal access to materials and participate fully in reasoning. In arbitration, the integrity of the entire arbitral process is paramount due to the limited scope of appeal.