LegalUK’s Helen Dodds has written an article for Singapore’s Business Times about the value of English law. She states that while the ground-breaking UK-Singapore Digital Economy Agreement published on Dec 9 enables these 2 nations to reach across the globe to share valuable information and technology services, there is another, much older, business platform that they also share – the law itself.
English law is so well-established globally that it can be used by businesses worldwide via numerous international access points, of which Singapore is a leading example. English law is the source of domestic law in over 80 jurisdictions around the world. Some legal systems have English judges sitting in their highest courts – including those who preside in the Singapore International Commercial Court. A recent study of 26 common-law jurisdictions published by Mishcon de Reya and vLex Justis showed that from 1717 to 2020, English law was cited 313,111 times by foreign courts (with the nearest competitor being cited 12,156 times). But in addition to using English-influenced local law, businesses anywhere in the world can easily access English law itself in a variety of ways.
We can see the benefits of English law being provided seamlessly to businesses around the world in or from the UK. Other jurisdictions understand the benefits of providing internationally located venues for resolution of legal disputes and Singapore has met with great success in this area. As we see from the readiness of other countries to administer English law-governed cases, as with Singapore, we can have a win-win situation where businesses around the world access the significant benefits of English law from the comfort of their own locations, wherever those may be.
Read the full article here (subscription required).
