Toh Kian Sing, SC is a Senior Partner of Rajah & Tann Singapore’s Shipping & International Trade practice, and was appointed Senior Counsel by the Supreme Court of Singapore in January 2007. He has also been appointed as a Senior Accredited Specialist for Maritime and Shipping Law under the Singapore Academy of Law’s Specialist Accreditation Scheme.

He brings to his law practice a background of academic excellence and experience having taught full time and subsequently, as an Adjunct Associate Professor, carriage of goods by sea, admiralty practice and conflict of law with the Faculty of Law of the National University of Singapore.

Chambers Asia-Pacific 2024 ranks him as a “Band 1” lawyer (since 2015) and clients describe him as “a real expert in his field who cuts to the chase and grabs the key issues very quickly.” He is also recognised as a “Leading Lawyer” by The Legal 500 Asia Pacific (since 2017) and has been described as an “master strategist”.

Kian Sing is ranked by Benchmark Litigation Asia Pacific 2024 as a “Litigation Star” and by Asialaw Profiles 2024 as an “Elite Practitioner”. He was also recommended as a “National Leader” in the Commercial Litigation and Transport – Shipping guides by Who’s Who Legal: Southeast Asia 2023, and named “Singapore Maritime Lawyer of the Year" by Best Lawyers 2021.

Apart from a busy court practice, he also acts as counsel in shipping and commodity arbitrations (in Singapore and elsewhere) and accepts appointments to act as arbitrator in these areas. He is on the panel of arbitrators of the Singapore International Arbitration Centre, Singapore Chamber of Maritime Arbitration, Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre, China Maritime Arbitration Commission, Shanghai International Arbitration Centre, Asian International Arbitration Centre (formerly known as Kuala Lumpur Regional Centre for Arbitration), Shenzhen Court of International Arbitration, The Japan Commercial Arbitration Association and has accepted appointments to act in ICC arbitrations.

Kian Sing’s scope of expertise includes bills of lading, charterparty, marine insurance and reinsurance, credit insurance (for commodity trading), shipbuilding, ship sale and purchase litigation as well as arbitration, oil and bunker trading, oil rigs and commodity disputes as well as letters of credit litigation. His practice also includes managing complex cross border litigation and arbitration in areas such as shipping, commodity, mining concessions, trade finance, international banking, insurance and reinsurance. He is the author of a book on admiralty law (now into its third edition), co-author of a book on bills of lading (published in December 2020) as well as numerous articles in the field of shipping and letters of credit.

Additionally, Kian Sing has nearly two decades of experience handling trade finance matters, both of a contentious and non-contentious nature. He has argued many of the recently reported Singapore decisions involving letters of credit as well as advised Singapore banks and commodity house in trade finance litigation in jurisdictions such as the UK, New York, Korea, China, India and even Iraq.

He also handles drafting and non-contentious work for banks and is responsible for preparing the complete set of letter of credit forms for several leading trade finance banks in Singapore.

He has conducted lengthy trials and interlocutory hearings before the Singapore International Commercial Court since its establishment.

Kian Sing is frequently consulted on sanction matters in international trade, having acted for financial institutions, commodity traders and carriers in disputes arising from North Korean, Venezuelan, and Russian sanctions.

In recent years, Kian Sing's practice has expanded into the field of joint venture as well as shareholders’ disputes, particularly those involving Chinese parties, as he is fluent in both spoken and written Mandarin and has years of experience acting for Chinese state and privately owned entities. In this regard Kian Sing has handled many Sino-foreign joint venture disputes as counsel and arbitrator in Singapore, Hong Kong and China on non-maritime areas. Such joint venture disputes relate to diverse areas of business like hotel management, technology transfer, mining concessions, sub-sea projects, food production etc. He recently conducted a trial before the Singapore International Commercial Court on a US$1 billion joint venture claim on behalf of a Chinese client.

Having previously taught full time at the Faculty of Law of the National University of Singapore and now a Visiting Professor at Dalian Maritime University, he ‎continues to lecture on an adjunct basis in Singapore and China on the areas of shipping, international sale of goods and private international law.