International Arbitration

Consistently ranked among the top international arbitration practices in Singapore, our award winning team has built its reputation on consistently providing clients with top-quality service and practical commercial solutions.

Arbitration Asia

A one-stop arbitration website which spotlights on Asia, covering the latest legislative and regulatory developments, case alerts, market updates and events or happenings across Rajah & Tann Asia’s geographical footprint.

Depth and Breadth of Experience

The collective strength and experience of the international arbitration practice is unparalleled in Asia. Having dealt with over 600 arbitration matters in Singapore, Asia and elsewhere since 2013, the practice is well equipped to deal with even the most demanding and challenging arbitrations, whatever its substantive governing law.

Our experience spans oil fields in Africa to drill ships and oil rigs in Singapore; steel plants in the Philippines to power infrastructure in Malaysia; submarine telecommunication cables connecting China to the United States, to base transmission telecommunication systems in Indonesia; power plants in China to coal mines in Indonesia; Pan-Asian vehicular franchises to car distribution agreements in Singapore; long term hotel management contracts in Indonesia to hospitality resort projects in India and land reclamation projects to billion dollar port disputes, among others.

We have been involved in the most complex cross border commercial and construction related arbitration disputes, whether involving Singapore law or different regional laws, such as Australian law, Indonesian law, Thai law, Indian law, Philippine law, Japanese law, Chinese law and Malaysian law, as well as shipping and admiralty disputes, and have been able to draw on an immense wealth of talent and experience to deal with and successfully deliver on such matters.

Uniquely for an Asian firm, there is a dedicated and sizeable core group of partners and associates in the International Arbitration Practice in addition to other arbitration/dispute practitioners in specialised fields across the firm, with even the ability to conduct Chinese language arbitrations. The team’s talent pool is augmented by foreign lawyers as well as dual qualified advocates.

Cases typically arise where the subject matter of the dispute is situated in foreign jurisdictions, with substantial foreign law elements and a mechanism for arbitration in Singapore or elsewhere.

We draw on our excellent worldwide contacts and our network of foreign lawyers in the firm’s regional offices to put together the strongest possible legal team to deal with the relevant issues, the best strategies for the case and the most compelling reliefs which may be sought under the relevant laws whilst minimising any real risk of challenges to any successful arbitral awards which we may obtain.

Members of the team have been retained as arbitrators, advisors and / or counsel on arbitrations conducted under the auspices of the world’s leading arbitration institutions, including:

The Permanent Court of Arbitration
The International Court of Arbitration of the ICC
The London Court of International Arbitration
The American Arbitration Association
The Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre
The Singapore International Arbitration Centre
The China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission
The Asian International Arbitration Centre (formerly known as The Kuala Lumpur Regional Centre for Arbitration)
The Thai Arbitration Institute
The Society of Maritime Arbitrators

In terms of geographical spread, we have been involved in some of the largest and most complex international arbitrations not only across the region, but also in diverse areas in Asia, America and Europe, including London, New York, Geneva, Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, Taiwan, Pakistan and the Philippines.

We have also acted for or against governments and government-linked entities across the world, including Australia, Philippines, Maldives, Kazakhstan, Madagascar, Brunei, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand, often in investor-state arbitration disputes.

Client Diversity

Thanks to the diversity of the clients we work with, we have in-depth knowledge of a wide variety of industries. We routinely handle disputes involving complex and multi-layered legal and factual issues, often working in close collaboration with industry experts and specialists in state-of-the-art technology.

Our practice has worked on disputes in the following areas:

Building projects including residential, industrial, mixed-development and commercial building projects;
Corporate and commercial matters, such as complex cross-border joint venture and shareholder disputes, banking, finance, insurance, regulatory, distributorship and employment disputes;
Energy and Resources including power stations, power purchase and connection agreements;
Infrastructure and civil engineering projects such as airports, railways, ports, highways, suspension bridges, tunnels and sewerage systems;
Maritime and shipbuilding contracts;
Oil and gas (upstream and downstream);
Telecommunications networks, infrastructure and sales; and
Water, oil, coal and other mining concessions

Recognition

World's Top 100 International Arbitration Practice

Global Arbitration Review (GAR100) since 2009
Band 2 - Dispute Resolution: Arbitration (Elite)

Chambers Asia-Pacific (2024)
Tier 2 - International Arbitration

The Legal 500 Asia Pacific (2024)
Ranked - Asia Pacific Region - Arbitration (International)

Chambers Asia-Pacific (2024)
Ranked - Asia Pacific: Regional International Arbitration: Leading Firms

The Legal 500 Asia Pacific (2024)
Spotlight Table - Dispute Resolution: Arbitration (Foreign Expertise) (India)

Chambers Global (2024)
"Rajah & Tann has highly competent lawyers who have delivered results in a complex matter in an extremely short timeframe."

Chambers Asia-Pacific (2024)
"Rajah & Tann is a leading firm in South East Asia. Its large arbitration practice is well established and highly regarded."

The Legal 500 Asia Pacific (2024)
"We have worked together with Rajah & Tann on a couple of disputes cases over the last 12 months. I would describe the team as flexible, open minded, diligent, and well-suited to working together in a colloborative capacity."

The Legal 500 Asia Pacific (2024)
"The team invest time to get themselves aware of the root cause and perform analysis to suggest next steps. They also take proactive steps to involve experts on a timely basis."

Chambers Asia-Pacific (2024)
"The lawyers involved make themselves available and think out of the box, looking for solutions when the need arises."

The Legal 500 Asia Pacific (2024)
"The Team is strategic, highly responsive and understands the commercial and legal issues. Overall one of the very best practices in Singapore."

The Legal 500 Asia Pacific (2023)
“Rajah & Tann has insight into commercial aspects and can dissect the problem and come up with a clear, consistent and workable strategy.”

Chambers Asia-Pacific (2023)
“They are adept in terms of how the industry operates and are very focused on delivering results – even if it calls for unconventional strategies.”

Chambers Asia-Pacific (2023)
"We were very impressed with both the legal advice provided as well as the way the team interacted with us. They were proactive and professional and very personable at the same time. The preparation of our witnesses in the arbitration hearings were detailed and done in a very diligent manner. We would highly recommend working with this practice again."

The Legal 500 Asia Pacific (2022)

R&T is one of Singapore’s largest and oldest law firms. This equates to a deep bench of relationships and knowledge across the legal fraternity which allows R&T to tailor each dispute resolution process to accentuate the arguments that are most effective for a particular judge or arbitrator or opposing counsel. Their large team also ensures that they have more capacity than other firms to research, uncover and make important, detailed arguments to advocate on behalf of their clients. It also allowed them to flex the size of the team up and down based on the requirements of the case as needed. The R&T team was also very diverse by ethnicity, gender, backgrounds and case experiences which enabled them to come up with more diverse and effective arguments for our case."

The Legal 500 Asia Pacific 2024