Issue #63: Thermonuclear
Welcome to the latest edition of OIA!
Here are the latest 🌶 headlines in APAC:
South Korea: The Supreme Court holds that Yogiyo, a food delivery platform, did not violate South Korea’s antitrust law
Ling Yah
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Out for Blood
Danish pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk is out for blood.
🍿 What Happened?
The drama kicked off when Novo Nordisk splashed out USD 1.3 billion to acquire ocedurenone from Singapore-based KBP Biosciences in late 2023. The hypertension drug seemed promising enough on paper – until it wasn't.
By June 2024, Novo was nursing a USD 800 million hangover after clinical trials revealed the drug's spectacular inefficacy.
Now, the Danish drugmaker is claiming they were sold a lemon, with allegations that KBP and its founder, Huang Zhenhua, knowingly withheld damning trial results.
The Singapore International Commercial Court has already sided with Novo enough to freeze KBP's worldwide assets, including those of Huang, who had been living large with an SGD 32.5 million Orchard Road bungalow purchase.
👀 What’s Next?
The battle's next round is set for New York arbitration, where Novo is gunning for USD 830 million in damages – and with Judge Philip Jeyaretnam already declaring Novo has "a good arguable case for fraud," KBP might want to keep those assets frozen for a while!
Non-Signatories
Who needs a signature when you've got necessity?
🍿 What Happened?
The Delhi High Court recently reaffirmed the role of non-signatories in arbitration proceedings.
The case arose from disputes under two agreements – a Standard Transportation Agreement and a Customs Clearing Agent Agreement – where the petitioner wanted to rope in a party who hadn't signed on the dotted line.
While the Court removed this non-signatory respondent from the immediate proceedings, it didn't shut the door entirely. Instead, it granted the petitioner permission to approach the arbitral tribunal directly to make their case for including the non-signatory as a necessary party.
👀 Hmm…
By affirming the tribunal's power to implead non-signatories while stepping back from making that decision itself, it looks like the Delhi High Court is proving how India is increasingly becoming an arbitration-friendly jurisdiction?
Let’s Go Thermonuclear
Elon Musk is not playing nice in Singapore.
🍿 What Happened?
For context, Media Matters for America (“Media Matters“) is a US non-profit media monitoring website.
In 2023, Media Matters published an online article claiming that anti-Semitic content could be found on X alongside advertisements from major brands like IBM and Apple, triggering an advertising exodus that sent shockwaves through the company's revenue streams.
Unamused, Elon vowed a ‘thermonuclear lawsuit’ against Media matters and initiated a USD 13 million lawsuit via X’s Asia-Pacific representative, Singapore-based Twitter Asia Pacific, in Singapore.
👀 However…
Media Matters isn't taking this lying down – they're challenging the Singapore court's jurisdiction and arguing for a stay, given the multiple proceedings already in motion across three continents.
With the US trial scheduled for April 2025, this multi-jurisdictional chess game is definitely one to watch in 2025!
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