Dickson has been an Advocate and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Singapore since 2015. His practice is in construction and property disputes, insolvency and restructuring, and commercial and civil litigation.

He acts mostly for businesses of a size where the dispute matters to the balance sheet. Contractors, suppliers, developers, facilities managers and F&B operators, and often their founders and directors in their own names as well. He also acts for liquidators and insolvency practitioners on recovery work, including assets held offshore.

At the start of a matter he tells the client which end point is realistic. A judgment, money actually in the account, and a settlement reached before costs overtake the claim are three different outcomes, and he would rather say which one is likely before the client commits than after. A judgment that cannot be enforced is not a result. Much of his recovery work is about the step that comes after winning, and a good deal of the rest is won earlier still, on the procedural application that settles a case before anyone reaches the merits.

Roughly a decade of his work has been in the built environment, acting across the chain from developers and main contractors to M&E and civil and structural subcontractors, suppliers, management corporations and subsidiary proprietors.

Experience

• Acted for the founder and former director of Babel Holdings in the restructuring of Babel Finance, reported at [2023] SGHC 98 and [2023] SGHC 329, and defended a related transnational claim in dishonest assistance and fraudulent misrepresentation, reported at [2023] SGHC 48, [2023] SGHC 153 and [2023] SGCA 27
• Acted for an investment house trading in precious metals and gemstones in a five-day High Court trial to enforce payment of a debt, where the defence asserted a condition precedent contingent on the sale of collateralised gemstones. Judgment for the client, [2023] SGHC 307
• SMRT Alpha Pte Ltd v Strait Colonies Pte Ltd [2017] SGHC 243, on appeal at [2018] 2 SLR 441. Acted for the landlord as junior counsel on the assessment of damages, in a claim for loss of rental income on breach of a tenancy and a counterclaim in fraudulent misrepresentation
• Chan Sze Ying v Management Corporation Strata Title Plan No 2948 (Lee Chuen T’ng, intervener) [2020] SGHC 88. Acted for the subsidiary proprietor as junior counsel, on the validity of resolutions passed at an annual general meeting and the chairman’s conduct of that meeting

Other matters

• Security of Payment adjudications, and applications resisting adjudications lodged prematurely
• Arbitrations under the SIAC Rules and ad hoc arbitrations arising from construction contracts, including retention, omission of works, delay and termination disputes
• Recovery work for liquidators, including declaratory relief and vesting orders against former directors, and cross-border asset tracing
• Freezing injunctions, including intervening in and varying an order where competing security interests were asserted
• Shareholder, director and minority oppression disputes, in court and in parallel arbitral and foreign proceedings

Education

• Bachelor of Laws (Honours), Second Class (Upper Division), National University of Singapore, 2014
• Gower Prize for Company Law, 2012
• Exchange, Australian National University, 2012

Admissions and Appointments

• Advocate and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Singapore, 2015
• Associate, Singapore Institute of Arbitrators
• Contributor, Singapore Civil Procedure 2020 (Order 76)
• Contributor, Atkin’s Court Forms Singapore, 2023 update

Languages

• English
• Mandarin
• Reads Chinese-language contracts and correspondence without a translator

Community

• Mentors law students at the Singapore Management University Pro Bono Centre on lasting powers of attorney, mental capacity and will writing, acts as a volunteer certificate issuer for lasting powers of attorney, and advises charitable and non-profit organisations
• Previously honorary pro bono fellow at the NUS Pro Bono Office, which he helped to set up, and a volunteer with the Legal Aid Bureau

Outside the Office

Dickson travels and scuba dives when work allows, and reports that entertaining his dog takes up most of what is left.