The Singapore Law Gazette

Ethics in International Arbitration as Practised (or not) in Singapore (Part 3)

Part 3: What happens if a Tribunal were to grant leave for a complaint to be made to the appropriate Bar Association in respect of professional misconduct by Arbitration Counsel?

This is the third part of my 3-part essay on the above topic. The first two parts appeared in the February and March issues of this Gazette. This was intended to be the final part but I will explain that at the end of this I am planning a fourth part.

1. At the end of Part 2 I pointed to the possibility of overcoming the barrier that Rule 59.3(e) of the SIAC Rules 2025 (which is essentially in the same words as the equivalent rule in the 2010 SIAC Rules and each periodic revision thereof to the present day) poses for any complaints about Counsel’s behaviour in an arbitration governed by the SIAC Rules. The question that now arises is whether any Arbitral Tribunal has ever granted leave under Rule 59.3(e)¹For easy reference, Rule 59.3(e) of the SIAC Rules 2002 provides an exception to the rule prescribing confidentiality for an arbitration conducted under the SIAC Rules. (or its predecessors) to permit a party to an arbitration seated in Singapore to make a complaint to a professional disciplinary body for disciplinary sanctions to be imposed on a Counsel who has arguably been guilty of an unethical offence under Singapore Law?
2. In this context, let me share with readers an actual case where I acted for a Singaporean Counsel who got into trouble for an alleged unethical practice he had engaged in when acting in a Singapore-seated Arbitration. His opponents in that Arbitration had made a complaint to the Singapore Tribunal that he had used information from that case and introduced it into another Arbitration or court case in another country between substantially the same Parties as in the Singapore arbitration, and this was allegedly a breach of confidentiality. His opponent applied to the Singapore Tribunal for leave to make a report to the Law Society of Singapore to pursue a complaint under the Legal Profession Act 1966 (“LPA”), and the Tribunal (whose Chairman was a then very senior lawyer and one of the other arbitrators was a retired Supreme Court Judge) had actually granted permission for this to be done. I was consulted by the Counsel concerned, and had to act for him before the Inquiry Committee under section 86 of the LPA. Ultimately, the Inquiry Committee directed the matter should not proceed any further and that decision was confirmed by the Council of the Law Society of Singapore, so the matter ended there and did not go before a Disciplinary Tribunal. I cannot remember exactly when this ruling was made by the Tribunal. However, my file was opened in 2014, and Rule 59.3(e) already existed in the SIAC Rules 2010 and 2013 (as Rule 35.2(f)), and this case happened after 2010 with the final decision of the Law Society Council being issued in July 2025, so the Tribunal may well have relied on that old Rule 35.2(f) rather than its own view of the inherent powers of a Tribunal to grant a common law exception to the principle of confidentiality.
3. The only problem with Rule 59.3(e) of the SIAC Rules 2025 is that a Tribunal is still not allowed to initiate a complaint against unethical Counsel unless the application comes from a Party. For a Tribunal to do so on its own motion, institutions would need to amend their rules on confidentiality as I do not believe that any of the other well-known Arbitration Centres have a rule similar to Rule 59.3(e). However, if a dispute arises in the middle of an Arbitration about a Counsel’s allegedly unethical conduct, the Tribunal can be asked to rule on the controversial conduct as a step in determining a procedural dispute between the Parties (rather than a ruling on the ethical nature of a Counsel’s conduct as such). Take, for example, an argument about whether a document tendered by one party in an arbitration contained legal advice by a lawyer to one of the other Parties. There is then an objection to the production of this document because legal professional privilege would be breached, and the Tribunal could rule that the production of such privileged document into evidence was contrary to the applicable law and, in so finding, would inevitably rule that the Counsel tendering such document (which would have been read by everyone working on the case) had breached legal professional privilege. It would be only a short step for the Tribunal, having made that ruling, to decide to allow the other non-breaching Party to refer the dispute to the relevant Bar Association (either in Singapore or elsewhere, as the case may require) if the non-breaching party were then to apply for an order to be made under Rule 59.3(e) granting permission for the non-breaching party to submit a complaint to the appropriate Bar Association of that lawyer who deliberately breached legal professional -privilege.
4. However, the above scenario involves a chain of suppositions, and life is not always so straightforward. What then is the appropriate next step?
5. My proposition is that, if a Tribunal does grant leave to an Arbitrating Party to lodge a complaint against the allegedly errant Counsel to a relevant Bar Association (meaning one which has disciplinary control over all its members for their conduct on a worldwide basis), then such a complaint can be lodged and ruled on by the appropriate disciplinary body of that Bar Association in accordance with its applicable rules. Some have counter-argued that the disciplinary regime governs only Counsel’s conduct before national courts, and not their behaviour before Arbitration Tribunals. I take a different view. The law, as it presently stands in Singapore, does not preclude complaints concerning the conduct of Counsel who are Singapore Advocates and Solicitors from being dealt with under the disciplinary regime of the Singapore Legal Profession Act (“LPA”)²I cannot of course speak for all Bar Associations around the world, but I believe that the major English-speaking Bar Associations would discipline their lawyers for misbehaviour in an International Arbitration..
6. The LPA provides that all Advocates and Solicitors are subject to the control of the Supreme Court (section 83(1) of the LPA). Upon due cause being shown (emphasis added), they are liable to:
   

   (a) be struck off the roll of advocates and solicitors;

   (b) be suspended from practice for a period not exceeding 5 years;

   (c) pay a penalty of not more than $100,000;

   (d) be censured; or

   (e) suffer the punishment referred to in paragraph (c) in addition to the punishment referred to in paragraph (b) or (d).

7. Due cause may be shown by proof that an Advocate and Solicitor (among others) has fallen foul of the following subsections in section 83(2):
   

   “(b)(i) has been guilty of fraudulent or grossly improper conduct in the discharge of his or her professional duty or guilty of such a breach of … any usage or rule of conduct made by the Professional Conduct Council under section 71 or by the Council under the provisions of the Act (Section 83(2)(b)(i) of the LPA);

   ….

   (h) has been guilty of such misconduct unbefitting an Advocate and Solicitor as an officer of the Supreme Court or as a member of an honourable profession (Section 83(2)(h) of the LPA).”

8. In my view, sections 83(2)(b)(i) and 83(2)(h) of the LPA cited above cover Counsel (and Arbitrator) misconduct in Arbitral proceedings. I will discuss these provisions accordingly.
9. Section 83(2)(b)(i) contains two situations in which due cause may be shown, specifically where an Advocate and Solicitor has been (i) guilty of fraudulent or grossly improper conduct in the discharge of his or her professional duty; or (ii) guilty of such a breach of any rule of conduct made by the Professional Conduct Council (e.g. the Legal Profession (Professional Conduct) Rules 2015) as amounts to improper conduct or practice as an Advocate and Solicitor. The first situation is, of course, arguably broad enough to cover Counsel’s conduct in Arbitral proceedings. However, I wish to focus on the second situation, i.e., when an Advocate and Solicitor can be charged for misconduct under the Legal Profession (Professional Conduct) Rules 2015 (“PCR 2015”). Several interesting provisions in the PCR 2015 are as follows.
   

   1. When conducting any proceedings before a court or Tribunal on behalf of a client, a legal practitioner (see Jeffery Pinsler, “Legal Profession (Professional Conduct) Rules 2015 A Commentary, (2^nd Ed) p 24 (02.006) must not, among others, (i) knowingly mislead or attempt to mislead in any way; (ii) fabricate any fact or evidence in any communication with, or representation or submission to, the court or Tribunal; or (iii) knowingly or recklessly cite the law out of context (Rule 9(2) of the PCR 2015).
   2. A legal practitioner must always be respectful of a court or Tribunal (Rule 13(2) of the PCR 2015).
   3. A legal practitioner must always be courteous in the conduct of a case before a court or Tribunal, whether to the court or Tribunal, or to any other person involved in the proceedings (Rule 13(3) of the PCR 2015). (emphasis added)

10. The immediate question is whether the term “Tribunal”, repeatedly mentioned in the PCR 2015, includes an Arbitral Tribunal. Rule 2(1) of the PCR 2015 defines “Tribunal” as:
    

    any judicial, quasi-judicial, administrative or regulatory body or authority in Singapore, or any Tribunal in Singapore that is established by law, and includes any of the following:

    […]

    (d) any Arbitral Tribunal as defined in section 2(1) of the Arbitration Act (Cap. 10) or section 2(1) of the International Arbitration Act (Cap. 143A). (emphasis added)

11. In turn, section 2(1) of the AA defines “a sole arbitrator or a panel of arbitrators or an Arbitral institution, and includes an emergency arbitrator appointed pursuant to the rules of Arbitration agreed to or adopted by the parties including the rules of Arbitration of an institution or organisation”, whereas in the IAA it is defined as “a sole arbitrator or a panel of arbitrators of a permanent Arbitral institution, and includes an emergency arbitrator appointed pursuant to the rules of Arbitration agreed to or adopted by the parties including the rules of Arbitration of an institution or organisation”.
12. Read together, these provisions clearly show that errant Counsel in Arbitral proceedings (at the very least, in domestic Arbitrations or Singapore-seated international Arbitrations) are subject to the usual LPA disciplinary regime via section 83(2)(b)(i) of the LPA, i.e., when an Advocate and Solicitor has been found guilty of misconduct under the PCR 2015.
13. The language of Rule 2(1) of the PCR 2015 (quoted at [10] above) suggests that its scope extends to Counsel’s conduct before a “Tribunal in Singapore that is established by law, and includes…Arbitral Tribunal as defined in section 2(1)” (emphasis added). Does this mean that Singaporean Arbitrators and Counsel in foreign-seated Arbitral proceedings are not caught by section 83(2)(b)(i) of the LPA? I shall discuss this question towards the end of this article.
14. At the very least, Counsel’s misconduct in domestic Arbitrations or Singapore-seated international Arbitral proceedings may be subject to the LPA disciplinary regime. It is interesting to note that the PCR 2015 have been in force since 2015, yet (subject to the exception of the case I have described at paragraph 2 above) it does not appear that any other Arbitration Counsel has been referred to the Law Society in this context. This may be attributable to the traditional concern about confidentiality or general ignorance about the significance of the reforms to the Professional Conduct Rules 2010 by the 2015 version as described above, which introduced those specific rules making misconduct before Arbitral Tribunals accountable under various Rules in paragraphs 9, 10 and 11 of the Professional Conduct Rules 2015.
15. If section 83(2)(b)(i) of the LPA is ultimately found to be inapplicable to Counsel appearing in foreign-seated Arbitral proceedings, I take the view that Section 83(2)(h) of the LPA (which has been cited at paragraph 7 above) may step in to fill this lacuna, i.e., when an Advocate and Solicitor has been found guilty of misconduct unbefitting an Advocate and Solicitor as an officer of the Supreme Court or as a member of an honourable profession.
16. Section 83(2)(h) is broad, and is not limited by reference to the forum before which the conduct has occurred. The concept of “misconduct unbefitting an Advocate and Solicitor” is a broad one, as demonstrated by a range of non-court activities which have been held to be breaches of section 83(2)(h),³Law Society of Singapore v Cheng Kim Kuan (2023) SGHC 350; Law Society of Singapore v Nedumaran Muthukrishnan (2023) SGDT 18. and there is no logical reason why misconduct by a Singapore Advocate and Solicitor in an Arbitration (including a foreign-seated international Arbitration) should not likewise be considered to be “misconduct unbefitting an Advocate and Solicitor” on par with any other conduct that lawyers in general would consider improper. I would advance (but with some caution) the proposition that, if a Singapore Advocate and Solicitor is guilty of conduct in a foreign-seated Arbitration which would violate standards of professional conduct if that conduct had occurred within Singapore, that lawyer should be subject to discipline under the Legal Profession Act, otherwise we could be sending our lawyers a message that, when practising advocacy in foreign-seated Arbitrations, they can ignore all the rules of conduct that Singapore expects of its lawyers in Singapore Courts and Tribunals. There is simply nothing in this provision that confines the investigation of professional misconduct to a lawyer’s conduct before national courts or Singapore-seated Arbitral Tribunals, and I would suggest that the legislature could not have intended for Singaporean advocates and solicitors to have free licence to adopt contrary standards of professional conduct outside of Singapore, and possibly lowering international respect for the honour of the Singapore Bar. Another interesting twist in the scenario could be when Counsel misbehaviour manifests itself in a Singapore-seated arbitration but which is actually heard in a foreign venue (by consent of both parties). I would argue that the whole rationale of the Professional Conduct Rules 2015 is to establish the international reputation of the Singaporean Bar so that all its members are held to the standards laid down in the entirety of Singapore legislation prescribing approved ethical standards for Singaporean lawyers. My view in this regard is supported by Law Society of Singapore v Kurabalan s/o Manickam Rengaraju [2013] SGHC 135, a decision of the Court of 3 Judges of the Singapore Supreme Court which held a Singapore lawyer (who was also admitted in Australia) liable for professional conduct breaches in committing the offence of champerty as the lawyer had signed a champertous agreement in Singapore with his client to commit champerty for an Australian case, where the champertous acts would be committed
17. Accordingly, my view is that misconduct committed by Singaporean Counsel (and Arbitrators) in Arbitral proceedings is in principle capable of falling within the disciplinary regime under the LPA, the only difference being whether it falls under section 83(2)(b)(i) or section 83(2)(h) of the LPA. This institutional arrangement is appropriate because it spares Arbitral Tribunals from being drawn into the determination of contested allegations of professional misconduct, and thereby avoids the attendant risk of challenges to the Tribunal based on perceived bias, especially where the outcome of the Arbitration is unfavourable to the party that the errant Counsel represents (see this point developed further in paragraph 23 below).
18. I hope that this essay will change the legal fraternity’s traditional perception of the immunity of Singapore Advocates and Solicitors from disciplinary proceedings arising from the cases they argue in Singapore-seated Arbitrations, and thereby can escape being charged before a Disciplinary Tribunal for professional misconduct in the same way that Counsel in the Singapore Courts can be disciplined.
19. Thankfully, Singapore Counsel engaged in domestic or international Arbitrations seated in Singapore are rarely mentioned as behaving in a manner in their advocacy before Arbitral Tribunals that they would not do if appearing before a Singapore court, so the number of cases requiring positive disciplinary action should be quite small. However that may be, it is necessary for the profession to realise that Arbitration Counsel (and indeed Arbitrators) can (and should be) subject to disciplinary scrutiny in the same way as their litigation colleagues are all subject to scrutiny by the appropriate disciplinary authorities whether for their behaviour within or without Singapore.
20. There is a threshold question of whether Singapore should require foreign participants in an arbitration seated in Singapore (or even seated elsewhere but physically held in Singapore) to be subject to the same disciplinary process as advocates and solicitors, possibly with some variations to take into account their qualifications and training as lawyers in another jurisdiction. This latter course has been taken by the Singapore International Commercial Court (“SICC”) which has a comprehensive set of rules relating to disciplining of foreign counsel registered as such in the SICC. Space does not allow for an analysis in this essay of why that regime should not be adopted for disciplining errant foreign counsel for their questionable professional conduct in acting in an arbitration either seated in Singapore or physically heard in Singapore. The real value of the SICC example is to demonstrate that there is nothing wrong in principle for a host country like Singapore to hold foreign counsel who are permitted by our laws to appear on an ad hoc basis in arbitrations seated or physically held in Singapore, and there seems no reason in principle why such a structure should not be set out.

What about the position of Arbitrators or Counsel who are not Singapore Advocates and Solicitors in Singapore-seated Arbitrations committing acts which violate the SIAC Code of Ethics 2025 or conduct which would fall within the definitions of “grossly improper conduct and/or misconduct unbefitting an Advocate and Solicitor?”

21. The short answer is that, again applying Rule 59.3(e) of the SIAC Code of Ethics 2025, the Tribunal could (on application) grant permission for the complaining party to refer the conduct of the offending non-Singaporean Arbitrator or Counsel to any of his or her Bar Associations. There seems no good reason why foreign Arbitrators and Counsel should not be subject to similar disciplinary action for unprofessional conduct as Singapore Arbitrators and Counsel (albeit such disciplinary action having to be exercised by the appropriate foreign Bar Association). So the same channel for disciplinary complaints should be available against all foreign Arbitrators and Counsel appearing in Singapore-seated Arbitrations.
22. That said, I have recently been made aware of an important public report authored by a Committee of legal luminaries largely from private practice but jointly chaired by Attorney-General Lucien Wong and (then) Deputy Attorney-General Ang Cheng Hock called “The Report on the Committee to review the regulatory framework for law practices and collaborations in Singapore” (October 2025) which makes certain comments on the role of offshore lawyers in Singapore practising (among other practice areas) international arbitration. I have not had the time to review this important document and will discuss it in a future chapter of this series of essays (Part 4).

Who should determine the question of unethical conduct by an Arbitration Counsel?

23. It is noteworthy that in 2013-2014, when the Swiss Arbitration Association was seeking to establish a transnational regulatory body with jurisdiction to enforce ethical principles and sanction violations through a body to be called the “Global Arbitration Ethics Council”, it pointed out that it is fundamentally wrong to make a Tribunal take on the responsibility for disciplining or sanctioning errant Counsel. First, it is not the natural function of a Tribunal, which is simply to decide a dispute. Second, if a Tribunal is tasked with investigating and ruling on possible misconduct by Counsel, it will generate the following likely consequences.

1. 1. First, it will distract the Tribunal from its main task of deciding the case on its merits.
   2. Next, it will create unhealthy tensions between Tribunal and Counsel.
   3. Last, it will provide an excuse (however unjustified) for aggrieved Counsel to make a challenge to remove one or more members of the Tribunal on the grounds of bias against the Counsel concerned.

24. Hence, the structure of the existing legislation in the Singapore Arbitration disciplinary landscape (whether intended or not) has the virtue of avoiding confrontation between the Tribunal and errant Counsel so as to allow the disciplinary process to be outsourced to a respected and natural forum, viz the local Bar Association of the errant Counsel or Arbitrator. As a practical matter, most Arbitration Counsel who can conduct an Arbitration hearing in English would usually have been admitted to an English-speaking bar (in addition to their home bar). Typically, where lawyers acting as Counsel in Arbitrations conduct their advocacy in English, the likelihood is that such Counsel would come with a qualification of being an English barrister, or an English solicitor (or someone admitted to practise advocacy in England & Wales, or a US State Bar) or even as a barrister in Australia or New Zealand (and likewise with Arbitration of whatever nationality being admitted to some English-speaking Bar Association). In such Bars, professional ethics rules are normally based on international norms, so appropriate ethical standards can be expected of these bars (not to mention the Singapore and Hong Kong bars), and errant Counsel would be seriously concerned if their behaviour in an Arbitration were to result in any of their bar admissions in those jurisdictions cited above being imperilled by their unethical behaviour. So this possible outcome could well prove an effective sanction against an unethical non-Singaporean Arbitration Practitioner’s behaviour before international Arbitration Tribunal.

CONCLUSION: HOW ENFORCEABLE ARE THE CURRENT RULES LAYING DOWN PENALTIES FOR PROFESSIONAL MISCONDUCT?

25. The situation now is that we have a toolbox of various provisions dealing with breaches of the Legal Profession Act 1966 and the Professional Conduct Rules 2015 as well as the freshly minted Guide to Ethical Best Practices for Legal Practitioners and Arbitrators in Dispute Resolution 2025⁴Authored by Ng Jern-Fei KC, Paul Tan and Una Khng. However, we seem to be missing the key to the toolbox, given that it is now clear that the law does impose various legal duties of ethical behaviour on both Arbitration Counsel as well as Arbitrators (collectively “Arbitration Practitioners”). The question still remains as to how breaches of ethical rules are enforceable against errant Arbitration Practitioners. This section is mainly about investigating ethical breaches by Singapore Arbitration Practitioners with a view to demonstrate that a complaint or charge of unethical conduct against unethical Arbitration Practitioner before a court or Tribunal (or an appropriate body empowered to deal with ethical complaints like a Bar Association) which would rule on that complaint or charge and issue appropriate penalties for such ethical breaches.

How does a party aggrieved by the conduct of an Arbitration Practitioner commence a procedure that will ultimately lead to ethical sanctions that have been discussed earlier?

26. I have earlier mentioned using Rule 59.3(e) of the SIAC Rules 2025 if those Rules are chosen to govern the Arbitration. Rule 59 imposes a prima facie obligation of confidentiality on parties which will, in the first instance, prevent any party bound by those rules to disclose any evidence or documents disclosed in the course of an SIAC Arbitration. But confidentiality can be relaxed under Rule 59.3(e) as set out in the current SIAC Rules. As discussed earlier at paragraph 2 above, a real-life example of how that provision (at least in one case) resulted in the beginning of a complaint based on an alleged breach of ethical rules under the SIAC Rules themselves. However, as this exception is not widely known, there are not likely to be many applications made under this exception to confidentiality, and, even if an application were to be made to a Tribunal to allow a disclosure to a Bar Association (including the Inquiry Panel and Inquiry Committee) of an allegedly unethical act by an Arbitration Practitioner, it could well be that the Tribunal hearing the application will take a conservative view (especially as Rule 59(3) mentions nothing about misconduct by any Arbitration Practitioner). This would result in such a Tribunal declining to allow such an exception to confidentiality specifically for the purpose of making an ethical complaint to the Inquiry Panel under section 85 of the Legal Profession Act, which must first be made to the Law Society of Singapore under 85(1)(A) of the Legal Profession Act, and the Law Society in turn must refer that complaint to the Inquiry Panel pursuant to section 85(1)(A). However, if:-
    1. there is an Arbitration where a Singapore Arbitration Practitioner is involved; and
    2. parties do not use the SIAC Rules or any other rules that specifically contain a restriction imposing confidentiality,

    then the situation in the AAY v AAZ case will permit the complaint to be made by any party participating in the Arbitration if it can justify the complaint on the grounds of the common law exceptions to the confidentiality principle under the rubric of public interest (see the discussion of AAY v AAZ at paragraphs 15 – 18 of Part 2 of this Essay).

27. The next most popular institution where Singapore is most often chosen as the seat would be ICC arbitrations. The ICC rules have never had any rules prescribing mandatory confidentiality but only allow (at the request of any party) the Tribunal to make orders concerning confidentiality of the arbitration proceedings. In practice, this means that most ICC Tribunals seated in Singapore will at the first case management conference ask for some form of provision to impose confidentiality, which will then depend on the favoured standard Procedural Order 1 of the Tribunal (after receiving input from the parties). In practice, breaches of confidentiality which are complained of by the non-disclosing party could then be the subject of a contested application for directions which may include withdrawal of previously disclosed information as well as some form of prohibition against future similar disclosures. It might therefore be an argument that the common law of arbitration in Singapore should follow English Law and the line of authorities following Emmott v Michael Wilson & Partners Ltd [2008] EWCA Civ 184 (previously discussed in Part 2 of this article, see paragraph 20, footnotes 9 and 10).
28. Accordingly, it will still be an exceptional situation if and when any complaint about an Arbitration Practitioner concerning his or her behaviour in an Arbitration will see the light of the day through a vehicle that will enable the existing ethical rules that have been discussed to be applied to Arbitration Practitioners. There is clearly a need to have a more transparent and direct route to allow a complaint about the professional behaviour of an Advocate and Solicitor to the appropriate authority which, under the circumstances, should be the Law Society leading to the Inquiry Panel in the first instance and (if the complaint is found to be deserving of being pursued further) ultimately to an Inquiry Committee followed by a Disciplinary Tribunal and eventually the Court of 3 Judges.
29. If ethical rules are to be taken seriously, they must have teeth, which means that violations of ethical rules need to be investigated and appropriate penalties imposed in the same way that disciplinary proceedings are brought against other errant Advocates & Solicitors. Indeed, if the legal profession in Singapore believes that non-Singaporean Arbitration Practitioners should be allowed to practise their craft within Singapore, there is no reason in principle why foreign Arbitration practitioners should be immune from complaints about their ethical behaviour although it is arguable whether foreign Arbitration Practitioners should be subject to the same ethical rules as Singapore practitioners. However, at the least, the possibility to a foreign Bar Association having jurisdiction over a non-Singaporean Arbitration Practitioner should be possible. Hence, it is necessary to call for further exceptions to confidentiality (whether under the SIAC Rules or the general common law), to allow complaints to be made to the appropriate disciplinary body that has jurisdiction over non-Singaporean Arbitration Practitioners appearing in a Singapore-seated Arbitration so as to enable all Arbitration Practitioners practising in Singapore to be reported to any Bar Association to which he or she is admitted.
30. It is now clear from both official legislation (as well as the morally binding provisions of the latest Guide to Ethical Best Practices) that Arbitration Practitioners (including both Arbitrators as well as Counsel) are subject to existing laws that prescribe standards of professional behaviour for both Arbitrators and Counsel. Accordingly, they must be subject to disciplinary procedures, where applicable, to enforce the maintenance of these professional standards. It is clearly unsatisfactory to rely only on Rule 59.3(e) of the SIAC Rules 2015 to give the key to a full suite of remedies against professional misconduct even if the profession generally is aware of this one possible entry point into the world of enforcement as opposed to the world of exhortation. So the minimum change to the existing laws concerning ethical behaviour should be to add a new sub-Rule 59.3(g) in the following (or similar) terms:-
    

    “Where the Tribunal grants leave to refer any allegations of professional misconduct of an Arbitration Counsel or an Arbitrator to any national Bar Association of which such Counsel or Arbitrator is a member so that such Bar Association may deal with the alleged professional misconduct.”

31. It is not surprising that our legislature has been drafting legislation to make Singapore Arbitration Law keep in touch with international standards. However, our legislation on this point seems to have stopped short of making the very comprehensive laws about ethics in Arbitration enforceable by disciplinary action taken by the normal enforcement of legal professional ethics in the shape of the Inquiry Panel, Inquiry Committee, Disciplinary Tribunal and the Court of 3 Judges. Such a structure of legislation would allow for a smoother route to disciplinary proceedings being clearly and easily enforceable by the Arbitrating Parties under the comprehensive disciplinary regime areas (available for complaints against Singapore Arbitration Practitioners) if information on the latter’s misdeeds can be made public. What is necessary is to have clear legislation that would allow foreign Arbitrators and Counsel to be the subject of disciplinary investigations, not necessarily in Singapore but in an appropriate foreign jurisdiction, so that all Arbitration Practitioners can be held accountable for unethical professional behaviour demonstrated in Singapore Arbitrations.
32. I therefore hope that this article will stir the relevant authorities to seriously re-consider the existing legislation discussed above to bring about an enforceable regime of ethical control over Arbitration Practitioners so as to further enhance Singapore’s standing as an International Arbitration Centre.