Dr Cameron Ford OAM SC

 

Dr Cameron Ford OAM SC is an independent arbitrator, counsel and mediator practising from Singapore. He holds a PhD on the topic Towards a Transnational Standard for Security for Costs in International Commercial Arbitration, and is a Specialist Mediator with the Singapore International Mediation Centre. He was awarded an Order of Australia Medal for services to law.

 

Cameron is on the arbitration panels of SIAC, HKIAC, KCAB, CIETAC and BAC and has conducted numerous commercial and investor-state arbitrations as counsel and as arbitrator under various institutional rules including SIAC, ICC, ICSID and UNCITRAL.

 

Cameron was most recently a partner in the international dispute resolution group of Squire Patton Boggs, based in Singapore. He has spent about a decade as in-house counsel with National Australia Bank, Downer Group and Rio Tinto, managing large commercial and investor-state disputes. From that experience he gained a deeper appreciation of the commercial imperatives operating on businesses and their desire for efficient disposition of disputes.

 

His more notable recent cases are:

• $300 million ICC commercial arbitration involving construction of a solar energy plant in South-East Asia.
• Investor-state claim arising out of that commercial arbitration.
• $60 million SIAC commercial arbitration arising from the construction and long term operation of a hospital in northern Asia.
• Investor-state claim arising out of that commercial arbitration.
• $5 billion SIAC commercial arbitration concerning construction of an LNG plant.
• $500 million SIAC commercial arbitration over construction of cryogenic tanks.
• $20 million ICC commercial arbitration involving the transfer of a mining licence in northern Asia.
• $40 million SIAC commercial arbitration arising out of a contract for mining services in South Asia.
• $500 million claim in the London Commercial Court concerning a mining services contract in Africa.
• $2 million SIAC commercial arbitration following termination of a franchise agreement in South Asia.
• $5 million SIAC commercial arbitration arising from a commodities contract in South East Asia.

Before going in-house, Cameron was a barrister and had been a dispute resolution partner in a firm. He is a registered adjudicator under an Australian construction security of payment scheme, has written over a dozen determinations and has advised on numerous applications for and responses to adjudications.

 

Cameron is an assistant editor of the Singapore Arbitration Journal, Chair of the SIAC Users' Committee for Australia and New Zealand, Member of the SIAC Users' Council Executive Committee and an advisor to the Singapore Law Society Publications Committee. For a number of years he served on the Singapore Law Society ADR Committee and proposed and drafted the Law Society Neutral Evaluation and Determination Scheme.

He has been the Editor-in-Chief of the Northern Territory Law Reports since 2004 and the Executive Editor of the Northern Territory Law Journal since its inception in 2009. He has had articles published on a range of topics including arbitration, security for costs, security of payment, the court's jurisdiction, constitutional law, civil procedure, and investigating construction disputes, as well as regularly writing case notes for Supreme Court decisions. Some of his published articles are:

• The Lost Precedents of Arbitration (2022) 39(1) Journal of International Arbitration 29.
• Case Note - Cheung Teck Cheong Richard v LVND Investments Pte Ltd (2022) Singapore Arbitration Journal 
• Case Note - CLX v CLY (2022) Singapore Arbitration Journal
• The 60th Anniversary of the New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards [2021] Northern Territory Law Journal 5.
• General Discounting of Security for Costs Discounted [2021] Northern Territory Law Journal 7.
• A guide to investigating construction disputes – CCH Construction Service.
• Approaches to Arbitration in Australia and Singapore, with Andrew Foo, Kluwer Arbitration Blog, 3 March 2019.
• The Law Society Neutral Evaluation and Determination Scheme, Singapore Law Society Gazette, December 2018.
• Purpose over process - empowering the SIAC-SIMC arb-med-arb protocol, Singapore Law Society Gazette, June 2018.
• Enforcement of foreign judgments and submission to the jurisdiction, Singapore Law Society Gazette, 2016.
• [In]security of payment (2010) 1 Northern Territory Law Journal 165.
• Advocates’ liability for wasted costs (2005) 16 Insurance Law Journal153.
• The Territories and Kirk v Industrial Relations Commission (2011) 2 Northern Territory Law Journal 28.
• The court’s duty to ascertain jurisdiction (2011) 2 Northern Territory Law Journal 13.
• Spirit of civil procedure reforms bites (2012) 2 Northern Territory Law Journal 227.

Cameron holds a Bachelor of Laws (Qld 1987), Master of Laws (Melb. 2004), Master of Arts in Contemporary China (NTU 2017) a Graduate Certificate in International Arbitration (NUS 2010), and a PhD (Monash 2022).