TSMP Law Corporation

Litigation and Construction

Partner, Co-head of Construction & Engineering

Melvin Chan is a specialist disputes lawyer, with experience as lead counsel in a broad range of civil and commercial litigation and arbitration cases encompassing general commercial, corporate, construction and engineering, professional negligence, shareholder and minority oppression disputes. Melvin has particularly extensive experience in construction and engineering disputes, including construction adjudication claims where he was lead counsel in a number of landmark decisions concerning the effect of security of payment legislation in Singapore.

Some of the notable cases Melvin has acted in include: (1) Acted for the landlord in a dispute with the tenant of the premises formerly known as the ‘Top of the M’, in the Mandarin Orchard Singapore, involving complex compliance and regulatory issues relating to the Fire Safety Act, as well as consideration of a landlord’s ability to exclude a tenant’s right of equitable set-off, reported in Overseas Union Enterprise Ltd v Three Sixty Degree Pte Ltd and another suit [2013] 3 SLR 1.(2) Acted for the structural works contractor in the Marina Bay Sands Project against the main contractor in a landmark decision on the legal effect of a failure to comply with the statutory regime under the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act, reported in Chip Hup Hup Kee Construction v Ssangyong Engineering and Construction [2010] 1 SLR 658. (3) Acted for the main contractor in a decision on the effect of the payment claim regime under the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act, reported in JFC Builders v Lioncity Construction Company [2013] 1 SLR 1157. (4) Advised and acted for one of the world’s largest international contractors in their disputes in connection with an integrated petrochemical refinery in Singapore with construction costs in excess of $1billion. (5) Acted for the Qualified Person in successfully defending criminal proceedings brought by the Building & Construction Authority relating to the construction of an office building, now known as Samsung Hub, reported in Public Prosecutor v Lee Chung Shek and Another [2008] SGDC 136. (6) Acted for minority shareholders in a shareholder oppression claim in the High Court and Court of Appeal against PSA International Pte Ltd and P&O Australia, reported in Ng Sing King and others v PSA International Pte Ltd and others [2003] 3 SLR(R) 591 and Ng Sing King and Others v PSA International Pte Ltd and Others (No 2) [2005] 2 SLR 56.

Wong Partnership, legal assistant: June 1999 to January 2006 TSMP Law Corporation, January 2006 to present

Current directorships: executive director, TSMP Law Corporation

Publications of note: ‘Judges 3: Parliamentary Government 2; Public Law Marches On: R v. Secretary of State for the Home Department, ex parte Fire Brigades Union’ 7 King’s College Law Journal 93 (1996-1997).

English, Mandarin.

Law Society of Singapore; Singapore Academy of Law; Fellow of Singapore Institute of Arbitrators.

St Joseph’s Institution, Singapore. St Joseph’s Institution, Singapore, 1986 – 1989, GCE ‘O’ Levels. Raffles Junior College, Singapore, 1990 – 1991, GCE ‘A’ Levels; King’s College, London, 1994 – 1997, LL.B. (Hons). National University of Singapore, 1997 – 1998, Post-graduate Diploma in Singapore Law.