Following two recent decisions from the apex courts in England and Singapore on the appropriate methodology to ascertain the proper law of an arbitration agreement, the positions in these two leading arbitration destinations have now converged in some respects. But other issues of conceptual and practical significance have not been fully addressed, including the extent to which the true nature of the inquiry into whether the parties had made a choice of law is in substance an exercise in contractual interpretation, the applicability of a validation principle, and the extent to which the choice of a neutral seat may affect the court’s determination of the proper law of the arbitration agreement. We propose a re-formulation of the common law’s traditional three-stage test for determining the proper law of an arbitration agreement that can be applied by courts and tribunals alike.

在英格兰和新加坡的最高法院最近就确定仲裁协议的适当法律的适当方法作出两项裁决之后，这两个主要仲裁目的地的立场现在在某些方面趋于一致。但其他具有概念和实际意义的问题尚未得到充分解决，包括调查当事人是否作出法律选择的真实性质在多大程度上实质上是合同解释的练习、确认原则的适用性，以及中立地的选择可能在多大程度上影响法院确定仲裁协议的适当法律。