Kenny Yap

Partner

Kenny is the Co-Head of the Maritime & Aviation Practice and Co-Head of the Shipping (Contentious) team. His main areas of practice are international trade and shipping covering both contentious as well as non-contentious work.

On the contentious side, Kenny has acted on a wide variety of litigation and arbitration disputes, including trade and commodities disputes, customs and letters of credit disputes, mortgage enforcement, charterparty disputes, shipbuilding and repair disputes, ship sale and purchase disputes, cargo claims, bunker claims, maritime fraud claims, shipping casualty matters, insurance and insolvency.

On the non-contentious side, Kenny’s experience encompasses advising on various trade and shipping matters including trade licensing and regulatory compliance, customs issues, import and export, UN sanctions, export control, transfer of strategic goods and technologies, storage and warehousing. He also advises on documentation for all types of trade, shipping, marine construction and offshore services contracts including sale of goods contracts, contracts of affreightment, bills of lading, chartering contracts, leasing contracts, logistics contracts, shipbuilding contracts, repair and conversion contracts, marine equipment supply and installation contracts, offshore engineering, procurement, construction and installation contracts, warehousing contracts, freight forwarding contracts, ship management contracts and agency contracts.

Kenny is listed as a Global Elite Thought Leader for Transport – Shipping by Who’s Who Legal and recognised by Benchmark Litigation as a Litigation Star in international arbitration and shipping. In 2023, Kenny was named as one of the Top 10 Maritime Lawyers globally by Lloyd’s List.

In 2019, Kenny was among the inaugural batch of select practitioners to be recognised as a Senior Accredited Specialist in Maritime and Shipping Law by the Singapore Academy of Law.

Kenny is a Fellow of the Singapore Institute of Arbitrators (SIArb) and is a member of the Legal & Insurance Committee, Singapore Shipping Association (SSA) and the Maritime Law Association of Singapore (MLAS). He is on the panel of arbitrators for the Singapore Chamber of Maritime Arbitration (SCMA), SIArb and the Asian International Arbitration Centre (AIAC). In addition, he is an Associate Mediator with the Singapore Mediation Centre (SMC) and is on the panel of mediators for the AIAC.

He was called to the Singapore Bar in 1993, when he joined Allen & Gledhill. He became a Partner in 2000.

Work Highlights

  • Acted for a shipyard in relation to a rig-building dispute which has been referred to arbitration in Singapore before the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC).
  • Acted for a Chinese bank in pursuing ship arrest proceedings in the High Court of Singapore for the enforcement of a ship mortgage.
  • Acted for a shipyard in an International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) arbitration in connection with a dispute arising from an FSO conversion project.

Publications