Knowledge & Insights

A five-member coram of the Singapore Court of Appeal has, in the ground-breaking decision of The Republic of India v Deutsche Telekom AG [2023] SGCA(I) 10, held that the doctrine of transnational issue estoppel applies in the context of international commercial arbitration. This prevents parties to a prior decision of a seat court from re-litigating before the enforcement court points that were previously raised and determined by the seat court.

Significantly, the majority of the apex court, in obiter, also provisionally indicated that as a rule of Singapore arbitration law, where the enforcement court is not precluded by transnational issue estoppel from considering an issue going to the validity of an arbitral award, it may nonetheless be appropriate for the enforcement court to grant primacy to a prior decision of the seat court. This was termed as the “Primacy Principle”. Pursuant to the Primacy Principle, an enforcement court will act upon a presumption that it should regard a prior decision of the seat court on matters pertaining to the validity of an arbitral award as determinative of those matters, which presumption may be displaced by certain considerations (for example, public policy considerations applicable in the jurisdiction of an enforcement court).

Our Partners Koh Swee Yen, SC and Joel Quek and Associate Victoria Liu acted for the successful respondent before the Court of Appeal.

This update takes a look at the Court of Appeal’s decision.

If you would like information and/or assistance on the above or any other area of law, you may wish to contact the Partner at WongPartnership whom you normally work with or any of the following Partners:

KOH Swee Yen, Senior Counsel
Head – International Arbitration
Partner – Commercial & Corporate Disputes
d +65 6416 6876
e sweeyen.koh@wongpartnership.com
Click here to view Swee Yen’s CV.

Joel QUEK
Partner – Commercial & Corporate Disputes
d +65 6416 8124
e joel.quek@wongpartnership.com
Click here to view Joel’s CV.