Kendall Tan

Head, Shipping & International Trade
Head, Brunei Business Unit

Rajah & Tann Singapore LLP

Kendall Tan heads Rajah & Tann Singapore’s Shipping & International Trade practice group, and serves as practice lead for the Shipping Regional Practice Group of the Rajah & Tann Asia network of law firms. He concurrently heads the Brunei Desk Practice of Rajah & Tann Asia.

Clients seek out Kendall to advise on disputes both locally, and across borders. He has dual admission as an advocate and solicitor of the Supreme Court of Singapore and of the Bar of Brunei Darussalam. Kendall is also a qualified and practising solicitor on the Roll of Solicitors of England and Wales. A “lawyer’s lawyer”, he garners a steady stream of instructions from international law firms and in-house counsel teams.

Kendall features in the rankings by successive editions of Chambers Global, Legal 500 and other esteemed journals in the shipping disputes space, notably for “amazing tenacity and stamina in prying apart the complexities in any matter“. He is lauded by clients for his “astute mind“, and ability to process “a massive amount of data across different types of evidence to still pull linkages together and to even pinpoint which ones may be fraudulent“. Kendall is feted in the peer review publications of Best Lawyers in Singapore as well as Euromoney’s asialaw, in the practice area of Shipping, Maritime & Aviation Law, and for being “exceptionally knowledgeable in both dry and wet matters“, and “very commercially minded and responsive“.

Chambers Asia-Pacific highlights Kendall’s strengths as “a very focused partner who can break down complex issues into bite-size portions to offer his clients focused and innovative solutions“. Legal 500 also attests that “Kendall Tan understands his clients’ concerns well and is always quick to get to the nub of the issues. He breaks down complex issues into simple bitesize packages for the clients to better appreciate the situation and makes decisions“.

He finds time for academia as a university adjunct professor in shipping law. He has given expert evidence on maritime law which found endorsement both in decisions by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana.

EXPERIENCE

Kendall’s key areas of practice are Casualty, Pollution and complex situations / disputes arising from specialised carriage, offshore construction, sub-sea and drillship accidents. He advises on chain-charter and alliance agreement disputes, complex cargo/bill of lading fraud and related claims, specialised carriage such as containerised, combi-transport (including rail) and refrigerated cargoes, “D.G.” shipments, gas carriers and tanker shipping.

He advises on the full spectrum of P&I and defence cover disputes, specialist cargo and energy package insurance matters, as well as issues relating to hull & machinery policies.

For Casualty case work, he has represented and advised shipowners, hull underwriters, P&I and cargo interests in virtually all major casualties involving Singapore-flagged tonnage in recent years. He has investigated and litigated mooring and berthing accidents, collisions and allisions with bridge and sub-sea structures, heavy weather damage, explosions, fires and rig / drillship incidents. Kendall has acted as counsel to the world’s leading container line carriers on heavy weather stow collapses, engine room fires, explosions on board and D.G. spills, and ship collisions, litigated in the Singapore High Court and other jurisdictions. He has acted as counsel in major collisions resulting in transboundary oil pollution occurrences, catastrophic environmental claims, and very significant damage claims. His experience includes acting in rig allisions/collisions spanning Singapore to the Gulf of Mexico. His expertise allows him to ably advise builders and buyers on rig conversions and newbuild LNG carriers in high-value disputes. Kendall represented the owners of a specialised drillship in a CTL incident and well blowout spawning a series of very high stakes disputes.

Kendall has regular involvement – for shipowners and cargo interests alike – in court or arbitral injunctions, arrest and other security-taking measures locally and across jurisdictions. Conversant in Mandarin, he has regular involvement in disputes litigated in the Chinese courts, and other North Asian jurisdictions. He is active as counsel in the Singapore courts, and appearing as counsel in substantial maritime as well as trading arbitrations in Singapore and London.

Kendall was counsel for the successful parties in the Singapore phase of proceedings in Enemalta Plc v The Standard Club Asia [2021] EWHC 1215 (Comm), arising from a high-stakes sub-sea cable snagging incident in the Straits of Sicily; and Times Trading Corporation v National Bank of Fujairah [2020] EWHC 1078 (Comm), a seminal decision relating to antisuit injunctions.

His wider experience includes acting in the Singapore chapter of the “ACONCAGUA” litigation for which he was instructed in a very substantial claim from total loss of the vessel due to DG cargo.

He also advised and pursued claims for a major North American chartering entity by arrests of ships associated with Libyan state-owned companies in the aftermath of the Gaddafi regime collapse.

Kendall was lead counsel in a complex bill of lading dispute on a suspected “carousel” oil-trading arrangement relying on “spent” documents that culminated in the seminal Singapore Court of Appeal decision by a coram of five judges in BWG v BWF [2020] SGCA 36.

For non-marine and commodities, Kendall has acted in international sale and trading arbitrations under the auspices of the SIAC, LCIA, SCMA, LMAA, ICC and GAFTA. He accepts appointment as arbitrator for Shipping and Commodities disputes. He is counsel of choice to two national oil companies, leading global traders in crude and fuel products, as well as the world’s leading privately held tanker fleets. On the energy front, Kendall advises on oil trading and LNG long-term supply and transportation contracts.

MEMBERSHIPS / DIRECTORSHIPS

  • Board member, Singapore Chamber of Maritime Arbitration (SCMA)
  • Chair, Members’ Consultative Council, SCMA
  • Member, Law Society of England and Wales
  • Adjunct Professor (Shipping & Admiralty), Singapore Management University
  • Fellow, Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (FCIArb)

PUBLICATIONS

  • Uberrimae Fides In Marine Insurance Contracts — Demarcating The Boundaries Of An Insured’s Continuing Duty Of Utmost Good Faith [1999] 20 Singapore Law Review 281 – 336.
  • Key Developments in Singapore Ship Arrest Laws: A Practitioner’s Perspective [2015] 1 Tur. Com. L. Rev. 253-264
  • Co-author, The Shipping Law Review (UK Edition, 2014, 2015)
  • Author, The International Comparative Legal Guide to Shipping Law (2015, 2016)
  • Author, Expert Guide, Shipping & Maritime Law (2016)
  • Featured in HFW Litigation’s report on the future of dispute resolution (2021)

Location(s)

Practice Area(s)

Qualifications

  • Advocate & Solicitor, Singapore
  • Advocate & Solicitor, Brunei Darussalam
  • Solicitor, England and Wales (Practising)
  • Snr. Acc. Spec. (Maritime and Shipping), Singapore Academy of Law
  • Fellow, Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (FCIArb)

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