Elsa Chen

Partner (Chief Economist)

Elsa is Co-Head of the Firm’s Competition & Antitrust Practice, and its Public Policy Practice. 

She regularly assists clients on complex antitrust matters, including merger control, global cartel and abuse of dominance investigations. Elsa’s public policy experience ranges from policy drafting, advocacy, and assisting on legislative changes. Proficient in Mandarin, she frequently assists clients on Chinese transactions as she reads and writes Chinese.

In 2020, Global Competition Review (GCR) named Elsa as one of the world’s top 40 antitrust practitioners under the age of 40, and the only economist named in Asia, in its quadrennial 40 under 40 survey. She is also the only economist cited as a Thought Leader in Asia and Singapore by Who’s Who Legal: Thought Leaders: Competition 2020.

Elsa is noted to be “the top merger control practitioner in Singapore”, “a leading name in the Singaporean market” and praised for her “analytical and practical approach”. She is the only economist recognised as a Leading Individual for Asia by Who’s Who Legal Competition: Economists 2019, and amongst the two most highly regarded economists in North America and the rest of the world as cited by Who’s Who Legal Competition - Future Leaders: Economists 2017. She was also recognised amongst the 10 competition economists globally in GCR’s Women in Antitrust 2016: Economists.

Elsa joined the Firm in 2007. She was previously from the Ministry of Trade and Industry of Singapore, and was also a pioneer member of the Competition Commission of Singapore (CCS), now known as the Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore (CCCS).

Work Highlights

• Deal book of notified transactions with total value in excess of S$420 billion, including every public takeover notified to the CCCS, and the first and only Provisional Infringement Decision of CCCS to be successfully overturned (Greif/GEP).
• Assisted on close to 90 per cent. of complex CCCS merger reviews requiring commitments, including the first foreign-to-foreign merger with commitments (Thomson/Reuters), and the first CCCS conditional merger clearance requiring local commitments (SEEK/JobStreet).
• Assisted on drafting of legislation, codes, policies and regulatory regimes, including the merger control framework for the Airport Competition Code, the Media Market Conduct Code, and economic aspects of competition law in the electricity and gas markets.