New Delhi:
The Singapore Supreme Court has set aside a ruling from an arbitration tribunal led by ex-Chief Justice of India Deepak Mishra after observing that 47 per cent of its contents – i.e., 212 of 451 paragraphs – were copied verbatim from two prior awards involving him.
Two other senior judges – ex-Madhya Pradesh High Court Justice Krishn Kumar Lahoti and ex-Jammu & Kashmir High Court Chief Justice Gita Mittal – were also part of that tribunal.
A Singapore Supreme Court bench of Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon and Justice Steven Chong found the earlier awards were used as “templates… to a very substantial degree” and observed, “It is undisputed that at least 212 paragraphs… were retained. This has several implications.”
The Supreme Court’s Court of Appeal said that while it is not improper for an arbitrator to resolve two related disputes, the fault lay in “portions from the Parallel (i.e., the two earlier) Awards (being) reproduced in the (third) Award without even being adjusted for differences…”
This, the court said, could lead a fair-minded observer to reasonably suspect the tribunal may have been influenced by the earlier decisions.
The dispute in question involved a special-purpose vehicle managing freight corridors in India and a consortium of three companies involved in infrastructure projects.
Specifically, it asked if a 2017 government notification increasing minimum wages meant the consortium could claim additional payments under their contract.
In November 2023, after negotiations failed, the matter went for arbitration in Singapore, where the tribunal led by ex-Chief Justice Mishra ruled in favour of the consortium.
The Singapore High Court later heard an appeal – the award was copied from two previous awards involving the same presiding arbitrator, i.e., ex-CJI Mishra, who chaired all three tribunals. His co-arbitrators in November 2023, though, were not involved in the earlier ones.
The High Court found natural justice principles had been breached by failing to independently assess the parties’ arguments and applying incorrect contractual terms and legal principles.
This also created the appearance of bias, the High Court said.
