Description

What law should govern the formation of international contracts? Common law courts have long been fixated on two choices—the putative proper law or the law of the forum – despite those choices being consistently criticised for perpetuating logical circularity and forum shopping respectively. The Singapore Court of Appeal’s decision in Solomon Lew v Kaikhushru Shiavax Nargolwala, however, breaks the common law’s problematic duality on formation issues. There, Lord Mance, sitting as an International Judge on an appeal from the Singapore International Commercial Court, adopted a novel choice of law rule selecting the law most closely connected with parties’ pre-contractual negotiations. This lecture dissects and critiques Mance IJ’s judgment in Solomon Lew, against the backdrop of the case-law and academic literature on the formation of international contracts. It also discusses Mance IJ’s philosophy of choice of law, reaffirmed in Singapore after Solomon Lew, and the implications it may have for choice of law doctrine beyond contracts.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Marcus Teo is a Sheridan Fellow at the NUS Faculty of Law. He teaches and researches in constitutional law, administrative law and private international law, and his work has been published in leading journals in these fields, including the International and Comparative Law Quarterly, the International Journal of Constitutional Law, Public Law and the Journal of Private International Law. Marcus’ current work focuses on the constitutional dimensions of private international law disputes with foreign relations implications, as well as the political epistemology of substantive review in the common law. He is also an advocate and solicitor of the Supreme Court.