SIArb Newsletters

PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE

SIArb was established in 1981 by 25 founder members and crossed its 40th milestone last year.  Our mission remains largely the same today – to serve as a national body to promote arbitration, train and accredit arbitrators, as well as organise lectures, courses and social events for our members, working in collaboration with likeminded organisations.

Although SIArb began in 1981 with a modest group of 25 non-lawyers and lawyers, it enlarged its membership to 79 by 1982 and grew to 600 members by its 25th year in 2006.  Today, we have just shy of 1,000 members and a more cosmopolitan mix of members than ever before, with high local and international demand for our training and accreditation services.  SIArb is one of the key stakeholders in the arbitration community in Singapore and contributes regularly to arbitration developments.

40 years for a volunteer organisation can be said to be more significant than 40 years in the life of a person in that it is only possible through the public service and sacrifice of all those who have come before us.  There is therefore much to commemorate, to celebrate and to be grateful for.

Council has been considering for some time different ways to commemorate the occasion – including to hold a gala dinner – essentially a party – for our members and friends to congregate.  Due to pandemic restrictions, we could not do this in 2021 but are looking forward to doing so in late November this year.  The electronic flyers have started being circulated so many of you will know that there will be three related events.

First, our popular annual Commercial Arbitration Symposium on 29 November 2022 (Tuesday), which is making a comeback after a 2 year hiatus, again in the old Parliament Chamber at the Arts House.  

Second, as the Chair of the Regional Arbitral Institutes Forum (RAIF) in 2022, SIArb is hosting the annual RAIF Conference on 30 November 2022 (Wednesday) as a pre-event of our gala dinner.

Third, our 40th Anniversary Gala Dinner will be held in the evening on 30 November 2022 (Wednesday) in the Fullerton Hotel ballrooms. We are honoured that Minister Edwin Tong, Minister for Culture, Community and Youth and Second Minister for Law, has agreed to grace our event and we have already started to receive reservations from colleagues and friends from the region and from further afield so we expect to be fully booked. Please do not leave your interest too late. We encourage those of you who would like to support the events to please book your tables or seats early. Our Secretariat will assist you with this as well as any interest in sponsorship.

In addition, our committees have been busy ramping up a series of in-person events from August 2022 because we fully appreciate that members would like to meet in person after a long break. A summary of these upcoming events is set out below and I look forward to meeting many of you there.

Meanwhile, before we meet to celebrate our 40th, to those of our senior members and members who have been involved in SIArb since earlier years, please do feel free to reach out to me, to Council members, or to our Secretariat to share your anecdotes or observations about what SIArb has meant to you or how SIArb has impacted your professional life. Many friendships have been forged through volunteering and serving with SIArb over the decades. We would like to find an appropriate way to document our collective memories and to record our collective thanks for the contributions of the many who have served before.