NUS Law appoints Professor Hans Tjio as new Director of EW Barker Centre for Law & Business
The National University of Singapore Faculty of Law (NUS Law) is pleased to announce that Professor Hans Tjio has been appointed the new Director of the EW Barker Centre for Law & Business with effect from July 2019.
Prof Hans Tjio will helm the EW Barker Centre for Law & Business from July 2019.
Prof Tjio holds a Master of Arts in Economics and Law from Cambridge University and a Master of Laws from Harvard University. He has taught at NUS Law since 1990, and was previously Co-Director of the Centre for Banking and Finance Law, Director of the Centre for Commercial Law Studies at NUS Law and a consultant with Linklaters Singapore. He presently serves on the Securities Industry Council and is the Deputy Chairman of the Singapore Exchange Listing Advisory Committee.
Prof Tjio has published widely in international and local journals, and has written or co-written books on company law, securities regulation and trust law. His most recent co-authored books include Principles and Practice of Securities Regulation in Singapore (3rd ed, Lexis Nexis, 2017) and Corporate Law (Academy Publishing, 2015).
He has been a visiting professor at the University of Auckland, New Zealand and Shanghai's East China University of Political Science and Law, and a visiting scholar at Stanford University and University of Melbourne, Australia. He has also delivered public lectures at the law schools of Tsinghua and Zhejiang Universities and was recently invited as the Distinguished Visiting Professor by the National Taiwan University to teach Comparative Securities Regulation on financial regulation and cash-out mergers in Singapore.
Prof Tjio will succeed Professor Tan Cheng Han, who has played a significant role as Chairman of the EW Barker Centre for Law & Business since its founding in 2014. Prof Tan was instrumental in establishing the Centre as one of the leading commercial law research centres in the world. He has also had a tremendous impact on legal education through his teaching, research, and leadership as Dean of NUS Law from 2001 to 2011.
Prof Tjio said, “I intend to continue the inter-disciplinary approach to law and business set by Prof Tan Cheng Han. We also hope to deepen our research into Small Medium Enterprises which are vital to the real economy in terms of diversity and employment, and in the area of privacy and data protection. Last but not least, we are launching some exciting initiatives in the field of intellectual property, and are strengthening our collaborations with the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore.”
Professor Simon Chesterman, Dean of NUS Law, added, “Prof Hans Tjio has established himself as Singapore’s leading securities regulation scholar, while also maintaining a strong record of engagement with industry and regulators. I am excited to see him take the helm of the EW Barker Centre for Law & Business and build on the many successes of its inaugural director, Prof Tan Cheng Han, who has done an extraordinary job in leading the Centre since its founding.”
About EW Barker Centre for Law & Business
The Centre for Law & Business at NUS Law was renamed the EW Barker Centre for Law & Business to pay tribute to Singapore’s first and longest-serving Law Minister Mr Edmund William Barker. The new Centre was launched on 29 May 2017 at the NUS Bukit Timah Campus by Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. The Centre was established to promote research and educational opportunities for faculty, students, legal practitioners and business executives who share a common interest in law, business and economics. It is continually expanding its initiatives aided by a philanthropic gift totaling $21 million.
Initiatives for 2019
The Centre is collaborating with the IP Academy Singapore to co-organise the 'Developments in IP Law' Seminar Series for intellectual property professionals in Singapore, which discusses intellectual property law developments in the preceding year in the fields of copyright, trademarks, patents and breach of confidence/data protection. This popular series, in its sixth year, is anchored by well-known law professors and practitioners, and focuses on developments in Singapore and the United Kingdom, and where relevant, developments in the European Union, United States and Australia.
It is also launching its inaugural Distinguished Visitor in Intellectual Property Lecture Series in March with Professor Barton Beebe of New York University School of Law delivering a lecture titled 'Intellectual Property Law and Post-Scarcity Society'. This lecture will focus on the social implications of post-scarcity and the ways in which intellectual property law is already being used around the world to undermine the socially progressive promise of post-scarcity.
In line with the Singapore government and judiciary’s aim to elevate Singapore’s position as a prime destination for international commercial dispute resolution, the Centre is also organising an International Conference on Dispute Settlement in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in July 2019. This conference aims to steer the centre of gravity for the study of dispute settlement in the BRI to Singapore, which is important for strengthening Singapore’s position as a legal and business hub in Asia.
