Rajah & Tann Singapore LLP

Head, Shipping & International Trade

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.

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)