On October 16^th, 2020, Professor Lawrence Boo, Member of the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) Court of Arbitration and Adjunct Professor of National University of Singapore Faculty of Law, delivered the inaugural lecture titled “Nature and Scope of Arbitral Awards” as part of the Fudan-SIAC Lecture Series.

Mr. Chen Li, Associate Professor of Fudan Law School, moderated the session. Professor Du Tao, Executive Deputy Director of Center for Proof of Foreign Law of East China University of Political Science and Law, and Ms. Chen Li, Professor and Vice Dean of Fudan Law School joined as discussants.

For starters, Professor Boo elaborated on the notion of arbitral awards by using case law from common law jurisdictions. He discussed various legal aspects of the arbitral awards. Afterward, Professor Boo zeroed in on the most salient characteristics of the arbitral awards distilled from past judicial or arbitral pronouncements. In the final segment of the lecture, Professor Boo spoke on some cutting-edge international commercial arbitration subjects, including the contingency fee arrangement and the third-party arbitration funding.

The discussants joined an animated conversation with Professor Boo after the lecture to further enrich our understanding of the topic. Professor Du discussed with the speaker the nature of the arbitral awards. Moreover, he shared his views on the nationality of the awards made by foreign arbitral institutions in China.

Professor Chen Li (Ms.) shared her experience of writing an arbitral award in a recent case she acted as an arbitrator. She further exchanged views with the speaker on some cutting-edge legal issues relating to the validity and nature of an arbitration agreement concluded under the auspices of foreign arbitration institutions in China.

The audience primarily consisted of faculty and students from Fudan University, Tsinghua University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Southwest University of Political Science and Law, East China University of Political Science and Law, Sichuan University, Shanghai University of International Business and Economics, Heilongjiang University, Shanghai Normal University, Ningbo University, Communication University of China, National University of Singapore, and Kobe University.

At the end of the two-hour session, the moderator thanked the speaker for giving such a remarkably lucid and fascinating public lecture in the Chinese language. The audience also joined in thanking the speaker for feting them with this intellectual feast.

To conclude, the Fudan-SIAC Lecture Series organizers announced that a team of distinguished lecturers from the SIAC would give a full course on “SIAC and Institutional Arbitration” to Fudan students in late October.