2020年5月28日，在BBA v BAZ [2020] SGCA 53一案中，新加坡上诉法院指出，若当事人希望将时效问题排除在仲裁之外，则应一开始就在仲裁协议中对此进行明确约定。否则，即使仲裁庭在时效方面的认定有明显错误，也不因此而导致撤裁，原因是法院不能仅因为当事人主张的这种情况显失公平或可能在普遍公正性方面造成影响就撤裁裁决。
一、背景介绍
BAZ（作为买方）和卖方（BBA与其他被申请人一起作为卖方）签订《股份买卖协议》对C公司的股份进行买卖。随后，双方当事人就公司某份内部报告产生争议，BAZ主张卖方隐瞒有关事实并提起仲裁，主张卖方和卖方其他被申请人存在欺诈性陈述。
《股份买卖协议》的仲裁条款规定在国际商会仲裁院（ICC）仲裁，仲裁地为新加坡，并禁止仲裁庭授予“惩罚性，示范性，多重或结果性损害赔偿”（下称“明确禁止的内容”，Express Prohibition）。SPA中的另一条款规定，裁决应包括从违反本协议之日起的利息，其利息率应由仲裁庭计算（13.14.4 … The Award shall include interest from the date of any breach or other violation of this Agreement and the rate of such interest shall be specified by the arbitral tribunal and shall be calculated from the date of any such breach or other violation to the date when the Award is paid in full.）。
BAZ仲裁胜诉，仲裁庭多数意见认为，卖方应对BAZ欺诈性地虚假陈述或隐瞒C公司的严重监管问题负责，认定：
（i）仲裁的开始时间依照印度《时效法》的规定并未逾期（依照印度法律，本案的时效问题属于管辖权问题而非可受理性问题）；
（ii）卖方对损害赔偿承担连带责任，其中包括预付利息。
新加坡高等法院在[2018] SGHC 275案中部分维持本案裁决，其中涉及未成年人卖方的部分除外。
其他败诉卖方不服，对该案提起上诉。
二、法院认定
（一）仲裁庭判付的损害赔偿或先裁决利息不违反仲裁条款明确禁止的内容
新加坡上诉法院确认了高等法院维持该裁决的裁定，并认为裁决多数意见判付的损害赔偿或先裁决利息（pre-award interest）不违反仲裁条款明确禁止的内容，因此仲裁庭并未逾越其管辖权。
卖方主张仲裁庭判付的损害赔偿是对机会丧失的赔偿，因此是仲裁条款明确禁止的间接损害赔偿。法院拒绝承认这种观点，并指出，首先
（1）卖方关于仲裁庭在量化损害赔偿方面应采取的正确方法究竟是什么的主张是实体主张，应向仲裁庭而非仲裁地法院提出（In our judgment, this was a submission that should have been urged upon the tribunal rather than the seat court, because it went towards the substantive merits of which approach to quantification the tribunal should adopt.），否则将导致法院干涉仲裁的实体内容(The courts do not and must not interfere in the merits of an arbitral award)。
（2）仲裁庭知晓仲裁条款明确禁止的内容，并援引TMM Division Maritima SA de CV v Pacific Richfield Marine Pte Ltd [2013] 4 SLR 972案，指出而虽然裁决中包括一些文笔错误，如将损害损害赔偿称为机会损失，但其内容的必须结合上下文进行解读，无论如何其都与对管辖权的异议的实体内容无关（“The court should not nitpick at the award. Infelicities are to be expected and are generally irrelevant to the merits of any challenge”.）。
（3）卖方所提出异议的加权平均资本成本算法是卖方的专家证人在仲裁中提出的方法，也是卖方律师在其结案呈请中提出的方法（the WACC was a figure put forth not only by the Appellants’ expert in the arbitration, Mr Saunders (as apparent from para 1078 of the Award, where the Majority recounted that “Mr Saunders on the other hand regarded it more appropriate to use the Claimant’s weighted cost of capital”),but also by the Appellants’ counsel in closing submissions for the Sellers.）。
第二，先裁决利息并不等于间接损害赔偿。SPA的争端解决条款本身赋予仲裁庭授予利息的权力。法院还区分了损害赔偿产生的利息与作为损害赔偿的利息（We arrive at this view not only because the tribunal’s power to award interest is addressed in a separate sub-clause from the Express Prohibition, but also because there is a distinction between awarding interest on or upon damages, and interest as damages. While the latter being a form of damages could presumably be subject to the Express Prohibition (which is against “punitive, exemplary, multiple or consequential damages”), the former is not.）。虽然仲裁庭授予作为损害赔偿的利息可能构成“惩罚性、示范性、多重或间接损害赔偿”，理由在于其中包含原告因使用款项而蒙受的损失，但损害赔偿的利息则既不属于也不违反仲裁条款的明确禁止性规定。此外，对裁决本身的适当审查表明多数意见并不寻求对卖方丧失的机会进行赔偿，并且多数意见使用的当事人双方自己提供给仲裁庭的数字（As we have found, the Majority quantified damages by calculating BAZ’s loss in 2008 by reference to the Merger, discounted backwards to 2008. Once they obtained this initial quantum, they were entitled to award interest on the damages to bring that sum forward in time, as Mr Yeo correctly acknowledged and as the diagram below illustrates. To that extent, the double recovery argument regarding pre-award interest stands or falls withour findings on damages.）。
第三，先裁决利息并不等于双重赔偿，从而构成惩罚性或多重赔偿，其原因在于损害赔偿若一旦在某特定的时间节点被量化，则多数意见将有权就损害赔偿授予利息，从而适当反映BAZ迄今所遭受的损失。
（二）法定时效针对的是可受理性而非管辖权
法院指出，法定时效针对的是可受理性而非管辖权，因此根据新加坡法律仲裁地法院对这个问题不能重新审查。
法院指出，期限针对的是管辖权还是可受理性的问题（下称“分类问题”，“the classification question”），由作为仲裁准据法和法院地法的新加坡法律管辖，而依照新加坡法期限针对的是可受理性的问题（We agree with the Judge that: (a) it is Singapore law, as the lex arbitri as well as the law of the seat court, that governs the question of whether limitation should be classified as going towards jurisdiction or admissibility (“the classification question”); and (b) under Singapore law, issues of time bar arising from statutory limitation periods go towards admissibility.）。
卖方主张法院在处理分类问题时应遵循仲裁协议和实体协议的准据法——即印度法律，以符合各方当事人关于如何确定其权利的意图。法院驳回这种主张，并认为双方当事人的意图是一个中性因素，而且尽管本案存在与印度和印度法律有各种关联因素，但当事人还是专门选择新加坡作为仲裁地，因此法院认为当事人在分类问题方面选择仲裁地法作为准据法这种做法是独立于其对准据法的一般性选择（The parties’ intention is a neutral factor as it could equally be said that parties, despite all the connecting facts to India and Indian law, specifically chose Singapore as the seat. That meant and included the choice of the seat’s laws to govern the classification question independently of their choice of governing law.）。
法院还阐明，《外国时效期限法》仅涉及外国或新加坡的时效法规是否应适用于某主张，而并不涉何种法律处理分类问或分类问题该如何处理。根据新加坡法律，由于法定时限针对的是可受理性而非管辖权，因此时效问题应由仲裁庭而非仲裁地法院来决定，法院不会重新审查仲裁庭的认定（Next, our answer to the classification question is that issues of time bar which arise from the expiry of statutory limitation periods go towards admissibility, not jurisdiction; they are matters for the tribunal and not the court to decide. Consequently, such issues cannot be reviewed de novo by the seat court in setting aside applications: AKN v ALC at [112]; PT First Media TBK (formerly known as PT Broadb and Multimedia TBK) vAstro Nusantara International BV and others and another appeal [2014] 1 SLR 372 at [163].）。
此外，时效法规的立法目的通常不涉及仲裁管辖权，因此仲裁庭有管辖权来认定仲裁主张逾期因此存在缺陷。因此，只要当事人没有明确约定仲裁庭无管辖权来审理依照根据法规规定逾期的仲裁请求，在仲裁中当事人就不能将法定时效问题作为管辖权方面的主张来提出——即主张当事人并无对逾期的仲裁主张进行仲裁的合意（This lack of express provision means that we cannot accept the CA 9 Appellants’ attempt to recast the statutory time bar objection as a jurisdictional one by asserting that there was no consent to arbitrating time-barred claims. More importantly, a further reason why the CA 9 Appellants cannot succeed is that if at all, this was a point they should have taken before the tribunal (see [49] above on raising jurisdictional objections in a timely manner).）。
法院拒绝对BAZ的欺诈主张是否在时效上逾期这点进行重新审查（de novo review）的关键还在于，其注意到卖方自身知道逾期可能性的存在的情况下，在仲裁期间对仲裁庭的管辖权提出异议时并未主张仲裁主张已逾期（There was no alternative argument on what the position would be if BBA was found to have authority. Having put all their eggs into one basket (on the issues of whether BBA was liable for fraud and if so, whether that liability could be attributed to the Sellers) and failed on their primary submission, the Sellers, including the CA 10 Appellants, cannot now complain the tribunal did not hear them out on the fallback position (of liability apportionment).）。
（三）若当事人未在仲裁过程中主张仲裁庭越权或者违反自然公正，则其在事后丧失以此撤裁的权利
卖方还主张仲裁庭让其承担连带责任违反自然正义，原因是仲裁庭并未邀请各方当事人对此发表意见，而该主张也被驳回。法院指出，一方当事人若主张仲裁程序中存在严重失误，则必须自己向仲裁庭明确提出，并且并不能因为无人向仲裁庭指出这个问题会导致出现复杂情况，而仲裁庭也不能预见会出现复杂情况，而认为仲裁庭存在过错（The Majority cannot be faulted for not foreseeing any complications and not dealing with this issue in depth in the Award, when nothing was put forward to suggest that this was going to be anything other than a straightforward issue.）。
法院还指出，卖方中的一些人在仲裁中主张BAA完全无权代理其行事，但其并未给出任何主张说明若BAA无权代理其行事则在各卖方之间的该如何进行责任分配，因此仲裁庭未支持其主张之后，卖方不能以此为由主张仲裁庭拒绝听取其备选意见（There was no alternative argument on what the position would be if BBA was found to have authority. Having put all their eggs into one basket (on the issues of whether BBA was liable for fraud and if so, whether that liability could be attributed to the Sellers) and failed on their primary submission, the Sellers, including the CA 10 Appellants, cannot now complain the tribunal did not hear them out on the fallback position (of liability apportionment).）。
（四）仲裁庭认定股东对公司承担连带责任这点不违反新加坡的公共政策
卖方主张仲裁庭认定卖方对BAZ承担共同连带责任这点违反新加坡的公共政策，法院驳回其主张，理由是这种主张忽略了股东对公司中的权利和责任仅限于其持股数量。法院认为，对于公司股东的代理人出售股东所持股份时的侵权行为而言，股东对公司的有限责任原则对在这种情况下股东应当承担的侵权责任并不进行限制（The doctrine does not limit shareholders’ liability in relation to torts committed by their agents in the sale of their shares.）。
三、评论
在本案中，新加坡上诉法院重申，在仲裁程序已经开始的情况下，一方当事人若对仲裁庭管辖权有争议，则该方应在仲裁期间向仲裁庭提出所有其管辖异议的相关具体论点，而能仅仅对仲裁庭的管辖权提出一般性反对，否则其在申请拒绝执行裁决阶段将无法再提出该等具体论点。同样，若一方当事人认为仲裁程序存在缺陷，则其有义务在仲裁过程中提请仲裁庭注意该缺陷，否则其在申请拒绝执行裁决阶段将无法再以存在该等缺陷为由而对裁决提出异议。此外，若当事人希望将关于时效问题排除在仲裁之外，则应一开始就在仲裁协议中明确指出这一点。即使仲裁庭在时效方面的认定有明显错误，也不因此而导致撤裁，理由是法院不能仅依照当事人主张的这种情况显失公平或可能在普遍公正性方面造成影响而进行撤裁。
此外，对于时效问题而言，各国法律对于时效问题的看法并不相同。例如在本案中时效问题属于管辖权问题而非可受理性问题，而本案的实体准据法是印度法，但仲裁地是新加坡，仲裁法是新加坡法，而新加坡法则规定这个问题属于可受理性问题，并且新加坡法院充分尊重仲裁自治。
因此，当事人在签署仲裁协议的时候需要对明确仲裁地法和实体准据法对一些介于二者之间的模糊地带的问题可能有不同的看法，从而谨慎行事或作出明确约定。