Brief facts of the case:
The parties in CVG v CVH were in a franchise business, with the Respondent being the Petitioner's franchisee in Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, and the Philippines. The authoritative connections among the parties were administered by four different Franchise Agreements ("Agreements"). Disputes arose regarding some alleged breaches of the Agreements following a management change at the Claimant's company as a result of a successful bankruptcy protection action filed by the Claimant under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code.

The Defendant disassociated themselves from the Claimant's corporate group after terminating the Agreements on the grounds of anticipatory repudiation and material breach. The Defendant considered the Claimant's refusal to grant access to its Singapore-based corporate group to be acceptance of their agreements' termination.

The Claimant then filed an arbitration with the International Centre of Dispute Resolution (ICDR). The arbitration was situated in the US territory of Pennsylvania and Pennsylvanian regulation administered the procedures. Additionally, the Claimant sought emergency measures. The Claimant argued in favor of applying the Agreements' agreed-upon post-termination provisions during the emergency measures hearing. The Claimant made a significant argument in its post-hearing submissions that it did not yet consider the Agreements to have been terminated.

Because the Claimant did not consider the Agreements to have ended, the emergency arbitrator made an award that maintained the status quo of the parties in place prior to the Agreement's termination. The Respondent objected to the Claimant's application to enforce the award in the Singapore High Court. The decision was made in response to this case before the High Court.[1]

Case Analysis: The High Court took a purposive translation of the legislative plan and plan of the International Arbitration Act and found that the meaning of 'arbitral tribunal' in Section 2(1) of the Act would stretch out to Section 3 of the Act in Section 27(1).

The High Court, nonetheless, rushed to raise objection with the enforcement of emergency arbitration on the ground that it disregarded principle of natural justice since the Respondent could not put forth its viewpoint in that frame of mind of specific submissions made by the Petitioner in its post-hearing submissions. During the emergency arbitration hearing, the arbitral court had enquired about the elective submissions of the Petitioner, in the occasion, the mentioned emergency measure was not conceded. In addition, the tribunal had included this concern on the list of issues that the parties were required to address in their post-hearing arguments.

The High Court decided that the award was made based on the Claimant's alternative submission at the post-hearing submission stage, despite the fact that it was within the parties' and their submissions' contemplation that the decision on the matter would be with respect to the new case of the Claimant regarding its treatment of the status of the Agreement, satisfying the requirements under Section 31(2)(c) of the Act. The High Court thus decided that the Claimant's submission altogether strayed from its prior position during the hearing stage.

End-Notes:

1. CVG v. CVH [2022] SGHC 249.