About the project

The Singapore Academy of Law’s Law Reform Committee looked into the possibility of the regulation of experts in construction arbitrations, due to widespread concern in various jurisdictions about the quality of expert evidence in both litigation and arbitration proceedings.

The Committee felt it was premature to suggest introducing rules governing experts and the evidence of expert witnesses in the Arbitration Act (Chapter 10, 2002 Revised Edition) and the International Arbitration Act (Chapter 143A, 2002 Revised Edition). In these Acts, Parliament appeared to have considered as a matter of policy to provide broad autonomy to the parties and wide discretion and power to arbitrators, leaving them free to agree procedures or, failing agreement, to let arbitral tribunals have discretion in relation to such procedures. Furthermore, if there was to be any code of conduct, there needed to be a body to work on, administer and maintain such a code, such as The Academy of Experts or the Expert Witness Institute in the United Kingdom.

Project status: Completed

• The report was published in September 2015.

Areas of law

◾ Arbitration law
◾ Building and construction law
◾ Evidence law

Click on the image above to view the report

Last updated 23 May 2019