Singapore court junks 'copy-paste' arbitration award handed down by ex-chief justice Misra

The Court of Appeal of Singapore has upheld the annulment of an international arbitration award chaired by former Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra after discovering that nearly half the decision --47% or 212 out of 451 paragraphs --was copied verbatim from earlier awards he had authored in separate but related disputes.

- Ayesha Arvind

BENGALURU:

The tribunal's "copy-paste" approach, the court held, violated core principles of natural justice and raised serious concerns about bias, fairness and the integrity of the arbitral process. The Court of Appeal, led by chief justice Sundaresh Menon and justice Steven Chong, noted in its judgment on April 8 that the award "was prepared using the Parallel Awards as templates to a very substantial degree" without regard to material differences in arguments, contracts or context.

The dispute stemmed from a contract between a special-purpose vehicle managing freight corridors in India and a consortium of three infrastructure companies. At issue was whether a 2017 Indian government notification on revised minimum wages entitled the consortium to higher payments.

When negotiations failed, the matter went to arbitration in Singapore under the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) Rules.