On 1 January 2025 the Singapore International Arbitration Centre brought the seventh edition of its rules into force. The text grows from forty one to sixty five rules and comes with three schedules. For a French company whose contract refers to the SIAC, the useful information is not the number of rules: it is that several of them apply without the parties having chosen them, and sometimes against what they wrote.
This page deals with the mechanisms that trigger themselves or on a simple application: the streamlined procedure and its threshold, the expedited procedure, the treatment of multiple contracts through joinder, consolidation and the new coordination, and the possibility of having a question decided or a claim dismissed before any hearing.
1. The streamlined procedure, the only genuinely automatic one
The streamlined procedure applies in two cases: where the parties agreed to it before the tribunal was constituted, or where the amount in dispute does not exceed 1,000,000 Singapore dollars before that same constitution, unless the President decides otherwise on a party’s application (SIAC Rules 2025, rule 13.1). The secretariat merely informs the parties that the arbitration will be conducted under Schedule 2 (rule 13.2).
The second case is the only one in the rules that requires neither the parties’ agreement, nor an application, nor a prior decision. It is enough that the amount falls below the threshold. A company claiming 940,000 Singapore dollars therefore finds itself subject to a regime it did not choose and its opponent did not ask for, simply because its claim is below a figure.
The lever exists for the party the regime disserves: a party may apply to the President of the SIAC to disapply the streamlined procedure (rule 13.1). It must be pulled early, before the tribunal is constituted, and supported by reasons drawn from the evidential or technical complexity of the case. That application is not a formality, it is prepared like a pleading.
2. What Schedule 2 takes away
The regime is set out in Schedule 2, and it is severe. A sole arbitrator is appointed. The parties have three days from the secretariat’s notification to appoint jointly, failing which the President does so as soon as possible. A case management conference is held within five days of the tribunal’s constitution, to fix the timetable and the fate of any incidental applications.
Unless the tribunal decides otherwise after taking the parties’ views, three prohibitions apply: the dispute is decided on submissions and annexed documents, no application for document production is admissible, and no party witness or expert evidence is allowed. No hearing is held, unless the tribunal finds it necessary or a party requests one and the tribunal agrees, and the hearing is then held remotely by default.
Those three prohibitions are not equal. The absence of a hearing is bearable, the absence of witnesses can be partly worked around with contemporaneous documents, but the impossibility of seeking document production is decisive in any dispute where the evidence sits with the opponent. That covers almost all disputes about conformity, industrial performance and diversion of customers.
In return, the mechanism delivers on speed and cost. The award, briefly reasoned, must be made within three months of the tribunal’s constitution, unless extended by the Registrar, and the arbitrators’ and centre’s fees are capped at fifty per cent of the scale maxima. For an unpaid invoice documented by delivery notes, it is an excellent instrument.
3. Primacy over the clause, and the two ways out
Two provisions of Schedule 2 are rarely read and change the reach of the clause. The first provides that the parties are deemed to have agreed that the streamlined procedure prevails over any inconsistent term of the arbitration agreement, including a clause providing for more than one arbitrator (Schedule 2, paragraph 17). The second closes, in that procedure, preliminary determination and early dismissal (Schedule 2, paragraph 18).
There are two ways out, and they are not exercised at the same moment. Before the dispute, the parties may exclude the application of rule 13 by a simple writing in the clause (rule 13.3): that is the only genuinely reliable answer. Once the arbitration is under way, the tribunal may, in consultation with the parties and with the Registrar’s approval, order that the arbitration no longer be conducted under the streamlined procedure, but it remains the tribunal constituted for it (Schedule 2, paragraph 20).
That last point deserves weighing. The sole arbitrator was chosen, in a three day rush, for a low value documentary dispute. If the procedure moves to the ordinary regime because the case turned out to be technical, the same arbitrator will decide it. The profile chosen on day one therefore commits far beyond what the appointment suggested.
4. The expedited procedure, which must be asked for
The expedited procedure follows a different logic: it never triggers itself. It applies by agreement of the parties before the tribunal is constituted, an agreement referring to an earlier edition of the rules counting as agreement to the current expedited procedure (rule 14.1). It may also be sought from the Registrar, on filing the notice or the response or before the tribunal is constituted, where the amount in dispute does not exceed 10,000,000 Singapore dollars while exceeding one million, where it is below one million but the President has disapplied the streamlined procedure, or where the circumstances warrant it (rule 14.2). The President decides after taking the parties’ views (rule 14.3).
The Schedule 3 regime is markedly more flexible than Schedule 2. A sole arbitrator is appointed unless the President decides otherwise. The dispute is decided on documents, but any party may request a hearing, and the tribunal may order one of its own motion, hearings being held remotely by default. The award, briefly reasoned, comes within six months of the tribunal’s constitution. Above all, none of the evidential prohibitions of Schedule 2 appears: document production and witnesses remain available.
A primacy rule identical to that of Schedule 2 nonetheless applies: the parties are deemed to have agreed that the expedited procedure prevails over contrary terms of the arbitration agreement, number of arbitrators included (Schedule 3, paragraph 7). A clause providing for three arbitrators does not survive here either, except that the procedure requires a decision of the President, which the party attached to a three member tribunal can resist.
5. Several contracts, several arbitrations
Where disputes arise out of several arbitration agreements, the claimant must file a separate notice for each agreement relied on, or file separate notices while applying simultaneously for their consolidation, or file a single notice covering all the agreements, that notice then counting as an application to consolidate (rule 15.1). It is deemed to have commenced as many arbitrations as agreements invoked, the Registrar assigning a separate reference to each (rule 15.2).
That architecture is rigorous and it is expensive, each arbitration bearing its own filing fee. Consolidation provides the remedy: before any tribunal is constituted in the arbitrations concerned, a party may apply to the Registrar where all parties consent, where all the claims arise under the same arbitration agreement, or where the agreements are compatible and the disputes arise out of the same legal relationship, out of a principal contract and its ancillary contracts, or out of the same transaction or series of transactions (rule 16.1).
Bringing in a third party follows a related logic. On filing the notice or the response, or at any time before the tribunal is constituted, a party or a non party may apply to the Registrar to join one or more additional parties, where all consent or where the additional party is prima facie bound by the arbitration agreement (rule 18.1). That is the route by which a guaranteeing parent or an assignee of the contract is brought into the proceedings.
6. Coordination, the real contribution of the 2025 edition
Consolidation left a blind spot: arbitrations whose parties are not identical, or whose agreements are not compatible, but which concern the same facts. The 2025 edition answers with coordination. Where the same tribunal is constituted in two or more arbitrations and a common question of law or fact arises, a party may ask it to coordinate them (rule 17.1).
Three methods are available: conducting the arbitrations concurrently or consecutively, hearing them together by aligning procedural aspects, or staying one pending a decision in another. The tribunal decides after hearing all parties and having regard to confidentiality obligations (rule 17.2). Unless otherwise agreed, coordinated arbitrations remain separate proceedings and the tribunal renders separate decisions and awards in each (rule 17.3).
The practical condition is demanding: the same tribunal must have been constituted in each arbitration. That does not happen by chance, but through coordinated drafting of the clauses upstream, or through agreement between the parties on appointments once disputes have arisen. Coordination is therefore less a rescue tool than a reward for contractual rigour.
7. Deciding before the hearing: preliminary determination and early dismissal
A party may ask the tribunal to determine preliminarily, finally and bindingly, any question arising in the arbitration, where the parties agree, where the applicant shows that such treatment is likely to generate savings in time and cost and a more efficient resolution of the dispute, or where the circumstances warrant it (rule 46.1). The application sets out the facts and the legal basis (rule 46.2), the tribunal decides after hearing the parties whether to allow it (rule 46.3), then fixes the applicable procedure (rule 46.4).
The mechanism is made for questions that govern the fate of the dispute: the validity of a limitation of liability clause, limitation periods, whether a breach is repudiatory, the scope of a force majeure clause. Well used, it turns a two year arbitration into a six month decision. Badly used, it adds an incident and an invoice.
Early dismissal answers a narrower logic. A party may apply to dismiss a claim or defence that is manifestly without legal merit or manifestly outside the tribunal’s jurisdiction (rule 47.1). The tribunal decides whether the application is admissible (rule 47.3), then rules by reasoned decision, briefly if appropriate, within forty five days of filing, unless extended by the Registrar (rule 47.4). The adverb manifestly sets the threshold: early dismissal sanctions the indefensible, not the poorly defended.
Both tools are closed in the streamlined procedure (Schedule 2, paragraph 18). For a company intending to use them, in particular because its defence rests on a limitation period or on a limitation clause, that is a further reason to exclude rule 13 at the drafting stage.
8. What the rules’ timetable actually guarantees
The rules fix no total duration for an ordinary arbitration, and legal departments asking the question deserve to be told so. What they frame is the final phase. Within thirty days of the last submission or hearing ordered, the tribunal informs the parties and the secretariat of an estimate of the time within which it proposes to submit its draft award for the centre’s scrutiny (rule 53.1). It must submit it no later than ninety days after that last submission, unless the Registrar decides otherwise (rule 53.2).
That scrutiny of the draft award is one of the services paid for by choosing an institution. The Registrar may suggest modifications of form and draw the tribunal’s attention to points of substance, without affecting its freedom to decide (rule 53.3). In practice it reduces the risk of a badly drafted award, and therefore the risk of setting aside, which directly concerns the creditor who will have to enforce it.
One last period is not a deadline but behaves like one: the award is released to the parties by the secretariat only after the costs of the arbitration have been paid (rule 52.5). A party that has not funded its share, or whose defaulting opponent has not paid its own, may find itself having to advance the entire costs to obtain the document it needs.
Frequently asked questions
How is the amount in dispute calculated for the threshold
Claims and counterclaims combined, and before the tribunal is constituted (SIAC Rules 2025, rule 13.1). That is the point claimants underestimate: a claim of 940,000 Singapore dollars falls under the streamlined procedure, but a counterclaim quantified at one hundred thousand dollars tips the case into the ordinary regime. Before drafting the notice of arbitration, the plausible counterclaim must therefore be assessed as carefully as one’s own claim, because it determines the evidential regime.
Can you leave the streamlined procedure once the arbitration has started
Yes, but imperfectly. The tribunal may, in consultation with the parties and with the Registrar’s approval, order that the arbitration no longer be conducted under the streamlined procedure (Schedule 2, paragraph 20). The arbitration nonetheless continues before the same tribunal, that is before the sole arbitrator appointed in three days for a documentary dispute. Before the dispute, written exclusion of rule 13 in the clause remains the only complete answer (rule 13.3).
What is the difference between consolidation and coordination
Consolidation merges several arbitrations into one proceeding, is sought from the Registrar before any tribunal is constituted and requires, absent agreement of all parties, compatible arbitration agreements (rule 16.1). Coordination, introduced in 2025, leaves the arbitrations separate and is sought from the tribunal where the same one has been constituted in each and a common question arises (rule 17.1). It leads to separate awards (rule 17.3), where consolidation leads to a single one.
Is early dismissal the equivalent of summary judgment
No, and the confusion costs pointless incidents. Early dismissal covers only a claim or defence that is manifestly without legal merit or manifestly outside the tribunal’s jurisdiction (rule 47.1). The threshold is obviousness, not weakness. To have a serious but contested question decided early, the right tool is preliminary determination (rule 46), which produces a final and binding decision on that question alone.
How long does an ordinary SIAC arbitration take
The rules fix no total duration, unlike the streamlined and expedited procedures, which require an award within three and six months of the tribunal’s constitution. In the ordinary regime they frame only the final phase: an estimate communicated within thirty days of the last submission, then the draft award submitted to the secretariat no later than ninety days after it (rules 53.1 and 53.2). Actual duration therefore depends on the timetable set by the tribunal at the first case management conference, which is when it is negotiated.