Rajah & Tann Asia

Commercial Litigation, Employment

Partner

Tze Phern specialises in commercial dispute resolution, with his practice focused on all aspects of employment related disputes and contentious employment advisory matters.

Tze Phern advises and acts for local and international institutions and individuals in a wide range of commercial disputes, and has particular experience with financial and insurance-related litigation, debt recovery, and professional negligence claims.

On the employment front, Tze Phern has a strong employment litigation record and regularly acts for employers and employees in significant employment related litigation in the State Courts and the High Court of Singapore. Tze Phern also actively advises on Employment Claims Tribunal disputes.

His experience includes advising on wrongful and constructive dismissal claims, remuneration disputes and clawbacks of payments, contentious exits, enforcing and resisting restrictive covenants (such as non-competition and non-solicitation clauses), workplace fairness, harassment and discrimination claims, and breaches of confidentiality obligations.

Tze Phern also has significant expertise advising employers dealing with regulatory investigations and sanctions by the Singapore Ministry of Manpower (“MOM”) for breaches of Singapore’s employment legislation and regulations and the Tripartite advisories on employment matters. He also actively advises employers on its dealings and negotiations with the trade unions and MOM on a wide variety of industrial relations and disputes matters, including unionisation of employees, collective agreements and the conduct of retrenchment and restructuring exercises.

Tze Phern was previously seconded to the Global Disputes Team of an international bank where he managed the bank’s high value disputes, financial crime compliance and government/regulatory investigations in the Asia Pacific Region.

Tze Phern was an Adjunct Faculty member at the National University of Singapore, Faculty of Law, where he taught the Legal Skills Programme. He presently teaches the Ethics and Professional Responsibility Course at the Singapore Institute of Legal Education.

LLB (Hons), National University of Singapore Advocate & Solicitor, Singapore