<span class="news-text_medium">Court:</span> Singapore High Court
<span class="news-text_medium">Judge:</span> Dedar Singh Gill J
<span class="news-text_medium">Date:</span> 06 August 2026
The Singapore High Court dismissed applications to set aside awards in a construction-related arbitration. The arbitrator had quantified the parties’ claims and counterclaims under a subcontract, but reserved jurisdiction to make payment orders until apportionment issues between joint-venture partners had been determined in a parallel arbitration. The Court held that the challenge was, in substance, an impermissible attack on the merits of the arbitrator’s procedural and substantive decision.
Two construction companies formed an unincorporated joint venture (“<span class="news-text_medium">JV</span>”) for a construction project in Singapore. Under their joint-venture agreement (“<span class="news-text_medium">JVA</span>”), the applicant held a 30% interest and the respondent held a 70% interest.
The JV engaged the applicant as a subcontractor under a construction subcontract (the “<span class="news-text_medium">Sub-Contract</span>”). A dispute subsequently arose, giving rise to two related arbitrations:
The latter structure reflected the fact that the unincorporated JV could not itself be sued as a separate legal entity and that the applicant could not sue itself.
In the JVA arbitration, a partial award resolved most of the issues between the JV partners. The Tribunal deferred the respondent’s counterclaim for an indemnity in respect of sums awarded under the Sub-Contract arbitration.
In the Sub-Contract arbitration, the arbitrator assessed the applicant’s claims and the respondent’s counterclaims. He did not, however, make payment orders at that stage. Instead, he reserved jurisdiction to do so once the parallel JVA arbitration had resolved the allocation of liability between the JV partners.
The applicant applied to set aside the awards under sections 48(1)(a)(iv) and 48(1)(a)(v) of the <span class="news-text_italic-underline">Arbitration Act 2001</span>. It alleged that the arbitrator:
Its central complaint was that having determined the quantum of the Sub-Contract claims, the arbitrator should have made immediate payment orders rather than awaiting resolution of the apportionment questions in the JVA arbitration.
The High Court considered whether the arbitrator’s decision to reserve the making of payment orders:
The Court dismissed the setting-aside applications. It held that the arbitrator had not exceeded his jurisdiction. An ultra petita objection is engaged where a tribunal decides a matter outside the scope of its mandate. The arbitrator’s decision not to issue a payment order at that point did not involve the determination of an unsubmitted matter.
Nor was there an infra petita failure. The arbitrator had addressed the matters referred to him by assessing the claims and counterclaims under the Sub-Contract. He had no jurisdiction to decide the apportionment of liability between the JV partners, which was the subject of the parallel JVA arbitration.
The arbitrator had also not delegated his authority to make payment orders to another tribunal. He had expressly reserved that authority to himself pending the determination of the separate apportionment issues.
The Court found the applicant’s challenge concerned the form of the awards and, in substance, disputed the arbitrator’s decision that payment should await the outcome of the apportionment exercise. That was a merits complaint rather than a genuine jurisdictional or procedural objection.
The statutory setting-aside grounds cannot be used to obtain a review of an arbitrator’s assessment of how and when relief should be granted within the arbitrator’s mandate. The unusual structure of the proceedings, parallel arbitrations arising from an unincorporated JV and a subcontract involving one JV member did not change that principle.
The decision is a reminder that Singapore courts will scrutinise the substance rather than the label of a challenge to an arbitral award. A party cannot recast disagreement with the tribunal’s approach to relief, the form of an award or case management as a jurisdictional or procedural defect.
The ruling is particularly relevant to disputes involving interconnected contracts and parallel arbitrations. A tribunal may determine quantum while reserving the timing of a payment order, where a related tribunal must first resolve an issue outside the first tribunal’s jurisdiction. A reservation of jurisdiction in those circumstances is not a delegation of authority.
<span class="news-text_medium">Case:</span> <span class="news-text_italic-underline">DVV v DVW [2026] SGHC 164</span>, Singapore High Court, 06 August 2026 (Dedar Singh Gill J).
