The Singapore International Arbitration Centre is pleased to announce the opening of a representative office in New York, USA.
The launch of the New York office, SIAC’s first representative office outside of Asia, is an important milestone in the institution’s global growth. US parties are consistently among the top foreign users of SIAC, and in 2018, they topped the foreign user rankings. In 2020 alone, over 500 US parties have arbitrated under SIAC’s Rules.
The opening of SIAC’s New York office underpins the steady rise in popularity of SIAC among users from the United States. It will serve as a springboard to further promote SIAC’s world-class dispute resolution services and foster deeper ties with users in the Americas, who will benefit from real-time access to SIAC.
In his keynote speech at the launch ceremony, Minister K Shanmugam, SC, Minister for Home Affairs and Minister for Law, Singapore, congratulated SIAC on the launch of its New York office, and announced that SIAC had set a new record this year, with 1005 new cases as of 30 October 2020, which included two sets of related cases.
This is the first time SIAC’s caseload has crossed the 1000-case threshold.
The New York office will be led by Ms Adriana Uson as its Head (Americas). Ms Uson brings a unique perspective to this role, having worked for several years as Counsel in the SIAC Secretariat, practised as an international arbitration lawyer at a top global firm, and served as sole arbitrator in administered cases.
Mr Davinder Singh, SC, Chairman of the SIAC Board of Directors, welcomed this exciting new development, “For a long time now, SIAC has been very conscious of the importance and weight of the Americas in international arbitration. That New York will be our first representative office outside of Asia is an acknowledgement that the Americas will be shaping much of the future of international arbitration. The opening of our New York office is our way of showing our many friends and supporters in the Americas that they matter to us.”
Mr Gary Born, President of the SIAC Court of Arbitration, said, “SIAC has recorded consistently strong growth in recent years, and already received over 1000 requests for arbitration this year. This is a record for SIAC and puts its international administered caseload among the highest in the world. The opening of SIAC’s representative office in New York is the beginning of a long-term collaboration and cooperation with our US users, to provide an expert, experienced and efficient means of resolving international disputes for US businesses. We look forward to working with our colleagues in the US and Latin America.”
Ms Lim Seok Hui, CEO of SIAC, said, “This is a special moment in SIAC’s history. The opening of our New York office, coupled with the crossing of the symbolic 1000-case threshold and a record number of US parties at SIAC, will firmly motivate us to do better. We thank our users from all over the world for the trust they have placed, and continue to place, in us.”
This will be the fifth overseas office for SIAC, which also has overseas offices in India, South Korea and China.
SIAC will commemorate the official launch of its New York office with a virtual launch ceremony and a series of online programmes to be held from 2 to 4 December 2020. More information is available here.
For more information, please contact:
Singapore International Arbitration Centre
T: +65 6713 9777
E: corpcomms@siac-staging.cloudwps.net
W: www.siac.org.sg
