Singapore court rejects Tata Power's challenge to $490 million arbitral award

The Singapore International Commercial Court (SICC) has dismissed Tata Power Company Limited’s challenge to an arbitral award directing it to pay $490.32 million to investment advisory firm Kleros Capital Partners Limited.

A Bench of Justice S Mohan and International Judges Anthony Besanko and Anthony Meagher found no breach of natural justice or apparent bias in the arbitral proceedings as claimed by Tata Power.

The dispute arose from two non-disclosure agreements entered into by Tata Power and Kleros in 2013 and 2014. Kleros had approached Tata Power as a potential co-investor in a project to extract coal from the Krutogorovo deposit in Russia.

Kleros alleged that it shared confidential information about the deposit and the auction process for obtaining a mining licence. The agreements required Tata Power to maintain confidentiality and prohibited it from circumventing Kleros’ economic interests.

The relationship later deteriorated over questions concerning control of the project and equity participation. Tata Power eventually obtained the mining licence through its Russian subsidiary, FENR, in January 2018. It later found the project unviable and surrendered the licence in 2022.

Kleros commenced arbitration under the Singapore International Arbitration Centre Rules in November 2020.

In September 2023, the arbitral tribunal unanimously held that Tata Power had misused confidential information, circumvented Kleros and breached its contractual duty of good faith.

The tribunal found that Tata Power had made incorrect statements as a result of which Kleros continued dealing with it. However, Tata Power was planning to exclude Kleros and acquire the licence itself.

In July 2025, the tribunal’s majority valued the project at $1.0215 billion. It found that Kleros had lost a 60 percent chance of successfully developing the project.

Tata Power was ordered to pay $490.32 million as damages, besides Kleros’ legal costs of around $8.29 million and interest at 5.33 per cent annually.

Arbitrator AK Ganguli dissented on damages. He found that Tata Power’s breaches did not prevent Kleros from pursuing the project. He said Kleros should instead be awarded $13.5 million as negotiating damages.

Before the SICC, Tata Power argued that the majority failed to decide the issues of causation, remoteness and mitigation. It also alleged apparent bias against presiding arbitrator Professor Lawrence Boo and co-arbitrator Stuart Isaacs KC.

The Court held that the natural justice argument by Tata Power was an attempt to reopen the merits of the award.

“The court is not concerned with the quality of the award or the depth of its analysis but the fact or existence of analysis,” the SICC said.

The Court found sufficient material to show that the tribunal had considered causation. It added that a tribunal must decide essential issues but need not separately answer every argument.

Similarly, it found that remoteness and foreseeability had been considered alongside causation. The absence of a separate section on remoteness did not establish a breach of natural justice, the SICC held.

“The court is concerned with substance not form,” it underscored.

The apparent-bias challenge was also rejected. The Court held that the involvement of Kleros’ funder Omni Bridgeway in unrelated arbitrations involving the majority arbitrators did not establish bias.

“Thus, shorn of its frills, Tata’s case on apparent bias is, in our judgment, no more than an unfounded apprehension that is ungrounded in evidence," the Court held.

Tata Power was represented by Senior Advocates Davinder Singh and Koh Swee Yen with teams from Davinder Singh LLC, Wong Partnership LLC and Prolegis LLC comprising Jaikanth Shankar, Hanspreet Singh Sachdev, Gulshan Singh Gill, Jeanne Goh Enchi, Daryl Wong Zheng Hui, Frank Oh Sheng Loong, Edwin Tan, Elizabeth Wee Wen Cui, Daniel Chia Hsiung Wen, Charlene Wee Swee Ting, Claudia Chan Kit Munn and Tan Yi Liang from .

Kleros Capital Partners was represented by Toby Landau KC with Calvin Liang Hanwen and Rochelle Lim Rui-Qi from Duxton Hill Chambers.

[Read Judgment]