Benjamin HUGHES

Benjamin Hughes is an independent arbitrator at Fountain Court Chambers in Singapore, adjunct professor at the National University of Singapore Faculty of Law, a member of the Court of Arbitration of the Singapore International Arbitration Centre and a member of the Investment Committee of Omni Bridgeway. Previously, Ben was a member of the faculty at Seoul National University Law School, the founding co-chair of the international dispute resolution practice group at one of Korea’s largest full-service law firms and a member of the international arbitration team at Shearman & Sterling in the US and Singapore. Since leaving law firm practice in 2013, he has been appointed in over 200 arbitrations with several billion dollars in dispute.

Ben has served as arbitrator under the rules of the AAA/ICDR, ACICA, AIAC, BIAC/BAC, CAA, CIETAC, DIFC-LCIA, DIS, HKIAC, ICC, JAMS, JCAA, KCAB, KLRCA, LMAA, SCC, SCMA, SIAC, UNCITRAL (both administered and ad-hoc) and VIAC. He has also acted as emergency arbitrator and as sole arbitrator in expedited and fast-track proceedings and is a panel arbitrator of numerous arbitral institutions. His experience as arbitrator spans a broad range of commercial disputes, including joint venture and shareholder disputes, intellectual property and licensing, media and telecommunications, construction and infrastructure projects, energy and resources, shipping and shipbuilding, automobile and heavy machinery manufacturing, agency and distributorship agreements, military acquisition and procurement contracts, hotel management agreements, sale of goods and general commercial disputes. He has been appointed in cases seated in Australia, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong SAR, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Nepal, the Philippines, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, the United States (including New York, California, Hawaii, and US territories) and Vietnam. He has heard cases governed by the laws of Australia, Austria, BVI, Cayman Islands, China, England and Wales, Fiji, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mauritius, Mongolia, Nepal, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia (including Sharia), Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, the United States (including New York, California and US territories) and Vietnam, as well as lex mercatoria and the CISG. He has also handled complex conflict of law and jurisdictional issues, joinder and intervention applications, summary dismissal applications and disputes involving multiple contracts and applicable laws.

Ben is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, the Singapore Institute of Arbitrators and the College of Commercial Arbitrators. He has taught extensively in the field of international dispute resolution prior to joining NUS as an adjunct professor, including as associate professor of law at Seoul National University Law School and as a visiting professor at the University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law and National Taiwan University Law School. He also serves on the editorial boards of the Asian International Arbitration Journal, the Korea Arbitration Review and the Journal of Korean Law.

Ben was educated in both the civil law and the common law traditions, having studied first at Seoul National University College of Law (MA, all coursework in Korean), and then at NYU School of Law (JD). While at NYU, he spent one semester at the University of Palermo Law School in Buenos Aires, Argentina (all coursework in Spanish). He also studied Mandarin in Beijing and East Asian history at Harvard University.