TAN Cheng Han, Senior Counsel

Professor Tan Cheng Han, Senior Counsel, is a Senior Consultant in the Firm. He is a leading counsel in the area of dispute resolution and international arbitration and brings with him extensive experience as counsel and arbitrator. 

Cheng Han was appointed Senior Counsel at the age of 39, becoming the first academic with an active counsel practice to be so appointed. He has also sat as a Judge of the Military Court of Appeal and as a Specialist Judge. 

He is currently the Chief Strategy Officer and Professor of Law at the Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore (NUS). His other appointments include being President of the Law Society of Singapore, a board member of the Asian Law Schools Association, a member of the Singapore Business Federation’s Board of Trustees, and a Vice-President of the Singapore Academy of Law. He is a member of the Panel from which Presidents of Disciplinary Tribunals under the Legal Profession Act are selected and has chaired a number of such tribunals. Cheng Han is also on the panel of arbitrators for the Singapore International Arbitration Centre and the International Centre for Dispute Resolution, and is a member of the Dispute Resolution and Compensation Arbitration Panel of the National Electricity Market of Singapore. 

He has also served as the Dean of the City University of Hong Kong School of Law where he was concurrently the Chair Professor of Commercial Law and co-Director of the Centre for Public Policy and Law. He previously served as Dean of the NUS law school from 2001 to 2011 and Chair of the E W Barker Centre for Law and Business from 2013 to 2019. 

He has held numerous appointments within the public, private and non-profit sectors. These include Singapore Exchange Regulation Pte. Ltd., the Corporate Finance Committee, Financial Sector Review Group and Appeal Advisory Committee at MAS, Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore, Sport Singapore, the Securities Industry Council, Singapore Technologies Aerospace Limited, NTUC Income, Keppel REIT Management Ltd., NTUC First Campus, and Caritas Singapore. He was also a Board Member of the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA) and Chairman of the Public Accountants Oversight Committee at ACRA.

In 2024, Cheng Han was conferred the C C Tan Award by the Law Society of Singapore. The award is the Society’s most prestigious accolade, presented annually to a member of the Society who exemplifies the virtues of honesty, fair play, and integrity.
He has written and edited many books, book chapters and articles in the areas of Agency Law, Contract, Corporate Law, Criminal Law, Family Law, Law and Technology, Law and Public Policy, Legal History, Partnership and Secured Transactions.
Cheng Han graduated with a Bachelor of Laws from the National University of Singapore and a Master of Laws from the University of Cambridge. He is admitted to the Singapore Bar.