Dr Colin Ong KC is senior partner at Dr Colin Ong Legal Services (Brunei), counsel at Eldan Law LLP (Singapore) and a Chartered Arbitrator and King’s Counsel at 36 Stone (London). He is regularly instructed as counsel, appointed as arbitrator, or instructed by international teams to provide second opinions, and has been involved in more than 380 arbitrations conducted under many rules, including AAA, BANI, CIETAC, HKIAC, ICC, LCIA, LMAA, KLRCA, OIC, SCMA, SIAC, TAI, UNCITRAL and WIPO. Dr Ong has experience in many applicable laws, including those of Canada, Cambodia, China, England, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Laos, Malaysia, New York, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Generally, he is appointed in complex high-value international disputes and many of his arbitrations involve values up to billions of US dollars. Cases range from investor-state disputes to commercial areas encompassing banking and finance infrastructure projects, insurance, mining and minerals disputes, energy disputes, information technology, intellectual property, M&A disputes, shipping, telecommunications, technology transfer, and urban development and wind farms.
In 2010, he became the first non-senior judge from ASEAN to be elected as a Master of the Bench of the Inner Temple. He was the first ASEAN national lawyer to be appointed English Queen’s Counsel (now King’s Counsel). He is a Chartered Arbitrator (FCIArb, FMIArb, FSIArb) and has a PhD, LLM, DiplCArb and LLB (Hons).
Dr Ong is president of the Arbitration Association Brunei Darussalam and chair of the international advisory boards of the Thailand Arbitration Center and the Japan Institute for International Arbitration Research and Training. He is a member of the ICC Taskforce on ADR and Arbitration and the ICC Taskforce on the New York Convention; the International Commercial Expert Committee of China’s Supreme People’s Court; the Advisory Council of the Indonesian National Board of Arbitration; the Appointing Committee of the Asian European Commercial Arbitration Centre (Germany); the Vienna International Arbitral Centre International Advisory Board; and the ICCA-Queen Mary Task Force on Third-Party Funding. He is an adviser for the China–ASEAN Legal Research Center; vice chair (arbitration) of the IBA; vice president of the Asia-Pacific Regional Arbitration Group; and a visiting professor at several civil law jurisdiction institutions, including Chuo University in Japan and Padjadjaran University in Indonesia. He is the author of multiple legal texts in advocacy and arbitration.
He is recognised in all legal directories, including Who’s Who Legal Thought Leaders: Arbitration and Expert Guides: Best of the Best (Arbitration) 2017–2021. In 2006, he was listed in Global Arbitration Review’s ‘45 under 45’. His languages include English (written awards), Bahasa Indonesia/Malay (written awards) and Chinese. He is ranked as a Tier 1 English King’s Counsel by The Legal 500: Asia-Pacific (English Bar) (Leading Silk in energy and construction).
The Legal 500: Asia-Pacific (English Bar) – Commercial (Leading Silk) 2022 states: ‘He is lethal in his case strategy and as a cross-examiner; he is surgical sharp like a par excellence surgeon, though he is indeed a doctor of law.’ The Legal 500: Asia-Pacific (Regional International Arbitration) (Leading arbitrators) 2023 states: ‘[H]e has a great ability to pick out the important points. He is qualified to handle both Common Law Cases and Civil Law Cases. As an arbitrator, he stands out as a “tower of ability”.’
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