Case Details
- Title: DKB v DKC
- Citation: [2025] SGHC(I) 21
- Court: Singapore International Commercial Court (International Commercial Court)
- Originating Application No: 10 of 2024
- Summonses Considered: HC/SUM 1177/2024; SIC/SUM 25/2024; SIC/SUM 46/2024; SIC/SUM 51/2024; SIC/SUM 17/2025; SIC/SUM 18/2025
- Date of Judgment: 28 May 2025 (Judgment reserved; reasons delivered)
- Date of Publication of Reasons (as reflected in the extract): 4 August 2025
- Judge: Thomas Bathurst IJ
- Plaintiff/Applicant: DKB (Claimant)
- Defendant/Respondent: DKC (Defendant)
- Legal Areas: International arbitration; enforcement of arbitral awards; stay of proceedings; civil procedure; costs
- Statutes Referenced: International Arbitration Act 1994 (2020 Rev Ed) (“IAA”)
- Key Procedural Framework: Singapore International Commercial Court Rules 2021 (“SICC Rules”), including O 22 rules on costs
- Related SIC/SGHC Decisions (for context): DKB v DKC [2025] SGHC(I) 11 (stay reasons, 16 April 2025); DKB v DKC [2025] SGHC(I) 14 (variation reasons, 2 May 2025); DKB v DKC [2025] 3 SLR 114 (dismissal reasons for SUM 46, 18 October 2024)
- Judgment Length: 17 pages; 4,241 words
Summary
DKB v DKC [2025] SGHC(I) 21 is a Singapore International Commercial Court decision focused not on whether an arbitral award should be enforced, but on the allocation and quantum of costs arising from a sequence of interlocutory applications connected to a stay of enforcement. The court had earlier granted the Defendant a stay of proceedings in favour of arbitration, despite the Defendant’s failure to commence arbitration promptly and its apparent lack of intention to pursue arbitration at the outset. The present judgment addresses what costs should follow from that outcome.
The court proceeded on the established principle that costs are discretionary and generally follow the event, but that discretion may be exercised to reflect the parties’ conduct in the proceedings. The decision also clarifies that post-hearing non-compliance with court orders may be relevant to costs, at least where it bears on the reasonableness of the conduct during the relevant applications and the overall procedural history. The court’s approach demonstrates how the SICC will manage costs in arbitration-related enforcement litigation, particularly where a stay is granted on conditions and the party benefiting from the stay does not comply.
What Were the Facts of This Case?
The dispute began with an originating application dated 21 December 2023. DKB, the Claimant, sought leave to enforce a final arbitral award (“the Award”) in Singapore. The Award arose from a Swiss-seated arbitration between a different set of parties (including DKC as the Defendant in the enforcement proceedings). DKB was not the original party to the arbitration; it acted as the assignee of the final award. The enforcement application was brought under s 29 of the International Arbitration Act 1994 (2020 Rev Ed) (“IAA”).
Leave to enforce was granted on 22 December 2023. Shortly thereafter, on 24 April 2024, DKC filed a Stay Application to stay enforcement of the Award pursuant to s 6 of the IAA. The stay was premised on a “stay and settlement deed” (the “Settlement Deed”) entered into by the Claimant, the Defendant, and two other parties. DKC’s case was that any dispute arising in respect of the Settlement Deed was contractually required to be resolved by arbitration. In other words, DKC sought to characterise the enforcement dispute as falling within the arbitration agreement contained in the Settlement Deed.
In parallel with the Stay Application, DKC applied to set aside the enforcement order (HC/SUM 1133/2024). Before the Stay Application was heard, the Claimant brought several interlocutory applications relevant to the evidential and procedural preparation of the stay hearing. These included: (i) SIC/SUM 25/2024, seeking leave to file affidavits on expert opinion regarding US and English law; (ii) SIC/SUM 46/2024, seeking an order that a senior English law counsel (Mr Roderick Cordara KC) appear to make submissions for the Claimant; and (iii) SIC/SUM 51/2024, seeking leave to adduce further evidence (a transaction record). The court granted SUM 25 and SUM 51, but dismissed SUM 46 on 18 October 2024, ordering the Claimant to bear the Defendant’s costs for that application (without determining quantum at that stage).
After the Stay Application was heard on 5 February 2025, the court granted a stay of all proceedings in SIC/OA 10/2024 on 19 February 2025, but imposed conditions. The conditions required DKC to commence arbitration under the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce’s expedited arbitration rules within 10 days and to diligently prosecute the arbitration and comply with directions. The court later published reasons for granting the stay on 16 April 2025 (DKB v DKC [2025] SGHC(I) 11). However, DKC did not comply with the deadline. Instead, it filed a Variation Application to extend the deadline (around 6 March 2025). The Claimant also applied to lift the stay (SIC/SUM 18/2025). The court varied the deadline to 12 April 2025 and stood over SUM 18 pending the contemplated arbitration. When DKC again failed to commence arbitration by the new deadline, the court lifted the stay on 13 May 2025 and ordered DKC to pay the Claimant’s costs of SUM 18. The present costs judgment then addressed the remaining outstanding costs issues across the Stay Application and related summonses.
What Were the Key Legal Issues?
The principal issues in [2025] SGHC(I) 21 were costs allocation and quantum. First, the court had to decide which party was entitled to costs for the Stay Application and for SIC/SUM 25 and SIC/SUM 51—applications where the court had previously reserved the question of costs. This required the court to apply the SICC Rules’ costs framework, including the general “costs follow the event” principle and the court’s discretion to depart from it where the circumstances justify a different order.
Second, the court had to determine the appropriate quantum of costs for each of the applications considered in the judgment: the Stay Application itself and SIC/SUM 17, SIC/SUM 18, SIC/SUM 25, SIC/SUM 46, and SIC/SUM 51. Although some costs orders had already been made (for example, the Claimant bearing costs for SUM 46, and DKC bearing costs for SUM 18), the court still needed to quantify costs and ensure the overall costs orders reflected the procedural history and the parties’ conduct.
Underlying these issues was a more nuanced question: whether DKC’s lack of intention to commence arbitration at the relevant time, and its subsequent non-compliance with the court’s conditional stay orders, should affect its entitlement to costs for the Stay Application and related interlocutory steps. The court had to reconcile the idea of “success” in the stay hearing with the possibility that the Defendant’s conduct could justify depriving it of costs or shifting costs to reflect unreasonable or improper conduct.
How Did the Court Analyse the Issues?
The court began by setting out the parties’ submissions on costs. DKC argued that it was the successful party in the Stay Application and therefore should receive its costs. It relied on the SICC Rules, particularly O 22 r 2(1), which provides that costs are in the court’s discretion and that the court may determine all issues relating to costs, including by whom and to what extent costs are to be paid. DKC also relied on O 22 r 3(1), which articulates the starting point that the successful party is entitled to its costs, while recognising that the court may depart from that starting point where appropriate.
DKC further invoked established authorities on costs principles, including Tullio Planeta v Maoro Andrea G [1994] 2 SLR(R) 501, Raffles Town Club Pte Ltd v Lim Eng Hock Peter and others (Tung Yu-Lien Margaret and others, third parties) [2011] 1 SLR 582, and Low Leong Meng v Koh Poh Seng [2012] 1 SLR 1076. From these cases, DKC distilled principles that costs follow the event unless the court considers some other order appropriate; that the general rule does not cease to apply merely because the successful party raised issues it failed to prove; and that a successful party may be deprived of costs where it caused a significant increase in the length of proceedings or where it raised issues improperly or unreasonably.
Crucially, DKC argued that the court should not consider post-hearing conduct to retrospectively colour the assessment of its success in the Stay Application. DKC’s position was that the relevant assessment concerns the manner in which the proceedings in question were prosecuted and conducted, which logically terminates at the point of final hearing. It contended that what happens after the hearing is properly dealt with by other mechanisms to ensure compliance with court orders, and that the court’s earlier costs orders in SUM 17 and SUM 18 already reflected the consequences of non-compliance. In DKC’s view, it would be a “logical fallacy” to allow later events to affect the costs entitlement for earlier success.
By contrast, the Claimant’s submissions (as reflected in the court’s framing of the issues) centred on the idea that the Defendant’s conduct should matter. The court had already found, in the earlier stay reasons, that the Defendant obtained a stay despite having no intention to commence arbitration. That factual and procedural context raised the question whether the Defendant’s “success” should be treated as a purely formal outcome or whether it should be tempered by the court’s assessment of reasonableness and fairness in the costs context. The court therefore had to decide whether and how to incorporate the Defendant’s failure to comply with the conditional stay orders into the costs analysis for the Stay Application and related interlocutory applications.
In addressing these questions, the court’s analysis was anchored in the discretionary nature of costs under the SICC Rules. The court recognised that O 22 r 3(2)(b) permits the court, for the purpose of determining reasonableness of quantum, to take into account parties’ conduct before and during the application or proceeding. This statutory permission to consider conduct before and during the relevant applications provided a pathway to incorporate conduct that was not merely “after the hearing” but was part of the procedural narrative leading to the stay and the interlocutory steps. The court’s task was to draw a principled line between (i) conduct that should affect costs because it relates to the conduct of the proceedings, and (ii) conduct that is better addressed through separate compliance-related costs orders.
Although the extract provided does not include the court’s full reasoning on each quantum item, it is clear that the court approached the costs question by (a) identifying the “event” for each application, (b) applying the starting point that costs follow the event, and (c) then adjusting that starting point where the Defendant’s conduct—particularly its lack of intention to arbitrate and its non-compliance with conditional orders—made it appropriate to depart from a strict “success equals costs” approach. The court also had to ensure that costs were not double-counted: if non-compliance was already penalised through costs orders in SUM 17 and SUM 18, the court would need to avoid simply repeating that penalty when quantifying costs for the Stay Application itself.
What Was the Outcome?
The court’s outcome, in practical terms, was to determine the entitlement to costs and the quantum for the outstanding summonses and the Stay Application, after having already made certain costs orders earlier (notably, costs for SUM 46 and SUM 18). The judgment therefore completes the “costs accounting” for the stay-related procedural sequence, ensuring that the final costs orders reflect both the procedural success on the stay and the court’s assessment of the parties’ conduct.
Given the extract is truncated, the precise final orders (including the exact sums awarded for each summons) are not visible here. However, the structure of the judgment indicates that the court resolved: (i) which party should bear costs for the Stay Application, SUM 25, and SUM 51; and (ii) the appropriate quantum of costs for each of the applications (including SUM 17, SUM 18, SUM 25, SUM 46, and SUM 51), culminating in a consolidated conclusion on costs.
Why Does This Case Matter?
DKB v DKC [2025] SGHC(I) 21 matters because it illustrates how the SICC will treat costs in arbitration enforcement litigation where a stay is granted conditionally but the beneficiary does not comply. For practitioners, the decision underscores that “success” on a stay application may not automatically translate into full costs recovery if the court considers the conduct surrounding the application to be unreasonable or inconsistent with the purpose of the arbitration agreement and the conditional relief granted.
The case also provides guidance on the interaction between (i) the general costs principle that costs follow the event and (ii) the court’s discretion to depart from that principle based on conduct. The court’s reliance on O 22 of the SICC Rules and on established Singapore authorities signals that costs analysis in the SICC is not purely mechanical. It is sensitive to procedural fairness, proportionality, and the extent to which a party’s conduct has increased costs or undermined the efficiency objectives of arbitration-related proceedings.
Finally, the decision is a useful reference point for counsel advising clients on strategy in stay and enforcement proceedings. Where a party seeks a stay in favour of arbitration, it should assume that the court may scrutinise not only the legal merits but also the practical intention and follow-through. Conversely, the party opposing a stay should consider how to frame costs arguments around conduct “before and during” the relevant applications, rather than relying solely on later developments.
Legislation Referenced
- International Arbitration Act 1994 (2020 Rev Ed), s 6 (stay of proceedings)
- International Arbitration Act 1994 (2020 Rev Ed), s 29 (leave to enforce arbitral awards)
- Singapore International Commercial Court Rules 2021, O 22 r 2(1) (discretion on costs)
- Singapore International Commercial Court Rules 2021, O 22 r 3(1) (starting point: successful party entitled to costs)
- Singapore International Commercial Court Rules 2021, O 22 r 3(2)(b) (conduct before and during application relevant to reasonableness of quantum)
Cases Cited
- Tullio Planeta v Maoro Andrea G [1994] 2 SLR(R) 501
- Raffles Town Club Pte Ltd v Lim Eng Hock Peter and others (Tung Yu-Lien Margaret and others, third parties) [2011] 1 SLR 582
- Low Leong Meng v Koh Poh Seng [2012] 1 SLR 1076
- DKB v DKC [2025] SGHC(I) 11
- DKB v DKC [2025] SGHC(I) 14
- DKB v DKC [2025] 3 SLR 114
Source Documents
This article analyses [2025] SGHCI 21 for legal research and educational purposes. It does not constitute legal advice. Readers should consult the full judgment for the Court's complete reasoning.