SIDRA & PwC Launch of International Dispute Resolution Survey

On 3 July 2020, the Singapore International Dispute Resolution Academy (SIDRA) launched its International Dispute Resolution Survey Final Report 2020. This is the first international survey to explore how business and their legal representatives make decisions about resolving cross-border disputes and their choice of dispute resolution mechanism.

CIArb’s Director of Membership, Camilla Godman FCIArb, spoke on a panel at the webinar to launch the Survey. The panel was moderated by Michael Peer FCIArb, Head of Disputes Advisory at PwC South East Asia Consulting who administered the Survey. The other panelists were Justice Anselmo Reyes FCIArb (International Judge of the Singapore International Arbitration Centre) and George Lim SC (Senior Counsel and Chair of the Singapore International Mediation Centre (SIMC)).

The Survey is a significant contribution to the international alternative dispute resolution (ADR) landscape. Amongst the many interesting insights from the Survey, the panelists addressed three in particular as follows:

1. Enforceability is the top consideration amongst dispute resolution users generally. However, while legal users ranked enforceability as the most important consideration client users ranked neutrality/impartiality as the most important consideration. In other words, cost and speed are important, but not the most important factors in selecting a dispute resolution mechanism.

2. Legal and client users are more satisfied with costs in mediation, as compared to litigation and arbitration. Although the Survey indicates that mediation is the least used dispute resolution mechanism, the use of mediation increases when it is used within hybrid dispute resolution mechanisms and comes closer to litigation in terms of usage.

3. Users have indicated that they are more amenable to using online processes if the dollar value of the dispute is low.

Other key findings include:

• International commercial arbitration remained the dispute resolution mechanism of choice among respondent users.
• International commercial arbitration was more popular among Legal Users than Client Users.
• In choosing international commercial mediation, more than 80% of users indicated impartiality/neutrality, speed and confidentiality as absolutely crucial or important factors influencing their choice.
• In the choice of mediators, good ethics and dispute resolution experience were most frequently rated as absolutely crucial qualities by users.
• Hybrid mechanisms have the potential to reduce the perceived disadvantages of standalone arbitration or mediation.
• Where preservation of parties’ business relationships, efficiency and cost are important factors, users chose hybrid mechanisms as opposed to standalone arbitration.

A flipbook of the Survey can be found here.

Camilla Godman FCIArb,
CIArb Director of Membership