A working group, co-chaired by Edwin Glasgow CBE QC and George Lim SC, was set up in April 2013 by the Chief Justice of Singapore Sundaresh Menon and the Ministry of Law to assess and make recommendations on how to develop Singapore as a centre for international commercial mediation.

This resulted in the establishment of SIMC, which was officially launched in November 2014 by the Chief Justice of Singapore and the Minister of Law, K Shanmugam.

SIMC complements the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) and Singapore International Commercial Court (SICC); these three entities are designed to provide a full suite of dispute resolution options for parties involved in cross-border disputes.

[6] SIMC's panel of mediators include Singapore's Ambassador-at-Large Tommy Koh and William Ury.

[2] SIMC also maintains a panel of technical experts to assist in mediations involving specialised issues.