Challenges of Executive Support for Settlement Agreements Reflected in Arbitration Award With a Comparative Study in the Singapore Convention 2019

Mediation is considered as a special way of dispute resolution, due to its reliance on parties' agreement and the fact that its outcome is satisfactory to all the disputing parties. Singapore Convention was drafted by the United Nations to promote the mediation and to overcome the lack of compulsory enforceability of settlement agreements. In Paragraph 3 of Article 1 of the Singapore Convention, settlement agreements which have been recorded as arbitral awards and are enforceable shall be excluded from the scope of application of the said Convention. There are several legal ambiguities regarding this regulation. Has the purpose of this regulation been achieved to eliminate the overlap of the Singapore and New York conventions? What does the Convention mean by a "recorded" and "enforceable" award? Can an arbitration award containing a settlement agreement be regarded as an "award" in the exact concept? And in what circumstances the arbitration award containing the settlement agreement can be regarded out of the scope of both Singapore and New York Conventions? The current article has analyzed the above questions and concludes that the wording of the Singapore Convention, in addition to causing legal ambiguities, has made some arbitration awards containing settlement agreements out of both conventions' support. Article suggests that arbitrators and disputants' attorneys should try to ensure that at least the provisions of the New York Convention are applicable to settlement agreements reflected in the arbitration awards, albeit the Singapore Convention has now completely blocked any support for the settlement agreements.