Lau Kah Hee
Director, Mediator, Commissioner for Oaths
+65 6514 1270
Kah Hee is qualified as an Advocate & Solicitor in Singapore and as an Attorney-at-Law in New York, and his legal career has spanned more than 15 years. He is also a Commissioner for Oaths.
Kah Hee began his legal career in 2008 as a Justices’ Law Clerk and then as an Assistant Registrar at the Supreme Court of Singapore where he worked for the Chief Justice and Judges of Singapore. Thereafter, Kah Hee was appointed a Deputy Public Prosecutor and State Counsel at the white-collar crime division of the Attorney-General’s Chambers of Singapore in 2010. While with the Singapore Legal Service, Kah Hee was also an adjunct member of the teaching faculty at the National University of Singapore, School of Business where he taught the final year accounting students Corporate & Securities Law.
In 2011, Kah Hee embarked on a new and challenging career in private practice, practising litigation and arbitration with the largest local law firm in Singapore (Rajah & Tann LLP) and the largest international law firm in the world (Baker & McKenzie), before joining Derrick Wong & Lim BC LLP as a Partner in April 2016, and now in the reconstituted firm, BC Lim & Lau LLC as Founder and Director in January 2020. Apart from practising law, Kah Hee is concurrently an adjunct faculty member of the Singapore Management University, School of Law, teaching the Law of Evidence and Company Law.
Kah Hee is actively involved in commercial litigation, arbitration, as well as immigration law, corporate compliance and governance. He also has experience advising and acting for various parties in contractual, commercial, corporate, banking, property, employment and financial, investment related disputes. In the areas of corporate compliance, Kah Hee’s practice includes bank fraud investigation, defence against government/regulatory investigations and white collar criminal matters.
Kah Hee also has significant experience in contentious tax matters, and given his dual qualification as both a lawyer as well as a Chartered Accountant, he is able to dissect the tax issues from the legal, accounting and tax perspectives in an insightful and multi-disciplinary manner. Kah Hee has also developed a deep interest in tax litigation and advisory work, and has published in the area of tax avoidance.
Kah Hee has been appointed onto the Financial Industry Disputes Resolution Centre (FIDReC) panel as an Adjudicator since 2024. He is also an active Accredited Mediator with the Singapore Mediation Centre and has been appointed by the State Court as a Court Mediator since 2016. Kah Hee handles numerous mediations as lead or co-mediator, whether privately appointed or under the auspices of various mediation institutions.
On a pro-bono basis, Kah Hee serves as a member of the Compensation Fund Committee, Law Society of Singapore, and as Assisting Counsel of LASCO for offences involving the death penalty.
Kah Hee also serves as a member of the Investigation and Disciplinary Panel of the Institute of Singapore Chartered Accountants (ISCA) and the Practitioners Committee of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) where he has been awarded Fellowship since 2020.
A brilliant law student, Kah Hee read law at both the National University of Singapore and the University of Cambridge where he graduated respectively with a Bachelor of Laws (First Class Honours) in 2008 and a Master of Laws (First Class Honours) in 2011 on the Lee Foundation Scholarship. He was placed second in the Singapore bar exams and was awarded the Lai Kew Chai prize for being the top candidate in Commercial Practice.
Kah Hee is dually-qualified as both an Attorney as well as a Chartered Accountant. Kah Hee obtained the Association of Chartered Accountants professional degree in 2010, was the prize winner for the final exams, and graduated with a Bachelor of Science (First Class Honours) in Applied Accounting.
Litigation / Arbitration (Tax, Commercial, Civil, and Criminal cases)
- Acted as Lead Counsel for 170 club members in one of the largest representative action suits at the High Court against a club owner for breach of contract, and the torts of deceit and negligence in 2021
- Acted as Lead Counsel for a dentist in a landmark tax avoidance appeal before the Income Tax Board of Review and the High Court in 2020
- Acted as Lead Counsel for a leading hedge fund company in a High Court suit initiated by a Singapore public listed company, which was successfully mediated in 2018
- Acted as Lead Counsel for a high net-worth beneficiary in a High Court suit involving the distribution of assets valued at close to $100 million, which was successfully mediated in 2018
- Acted as Lead Counsel for a leading construction firm in a breach of contract claim, which was successfully mediated in 2017
- Acted as Lead Counsel for a leading electronic and scientific company in a High Court case initiated by the minority shareholders, which was successfully resolved in our client’s favour
- Acted as Lead Counsel for numerous high-net-worth foreign individuals in successful appeals for the application of employment passes to work in Singapore
- Acting for and advising a big-four auditor firm in an auditor negligence case involving “unauthorized foreign exchange transactions” – the claims amounted to hundreds of millions. Parties eventually reached a “full and final amicable settlement in respect of the claims”, which terms are confidential.
- Acting for and advising a leading manufacturer of baby nutrition products in a billion dollar claim against its supplier following an infant formula milk scare and product recall
- Advising an international beer company in an arbitration against a competing leading beer and beverage company
- Acted as Lead Counsel for a high-net-worth individual in an immigration offence case and successfully obtaining a reduced charge and fine in lieu of jail sentence
- Acted as Lead Counsel for a director of a global conglomerate of operations, maintenance and construction services in relation to various ACRA offences and successfully obtaining a complete composition of all offences after multiple representations and appeals
- Acted for an accused who was facing several counts of rape, oral sex and molestation. The Court of Appeal set aside his sentence of 29 years of jail and 24 strokes of the cane, and acquitted him of all charges. This is believed to be the first case in a family context where a father has been acquitted of sexual offences of such a scale against his own daughter (AOF v Public Prosecutor [2012] SGCA 26).
Compliance / White Collar / Fraud and Tax Investigations
- Advised on compliance, tax and bank fraud investigations for Swiss conglomerates
- Acted for the President of an international sports body on corruption claims to the Corrupt Practices Investigations Bureau Advised a leading supplier for the printing industry on white collar and legal compliance issues across Singapore, China, Europe, and the USA
- Advised a conglomerate on regulatory aspects of leases with a Singapore government authority
- Conducted dawn raid, compliance and data privacy training for a Japanese company specialising in electronic products and a multi-national manufacturer of construction equipment.
Employment
- Advising a leading international bank on dispute related issues relating to an employee’s share awards, stock options and other discretionary employee benefits
- Advising a leading international bank on dispute related issues relating to an employee’s deferred cash and share awards and the vesting of the same
- Advising a French multinational insurance firm on dispute related issues relating to employee confidentiality and behaviour
- Assisting a French multinational cosmetics company on dispute related issues relating to employee confidentiality and behaviour
- Advising and acting for an American manufacturing company on various employment and medical-related claims
- Advising and acting for the leading provider of customer experience systems and services on various issues relating to employee confidentiality and behavior
Pharmaceutical
- Advising a leading manufacturer of baby nutrition products on clinical testing of its proprietary baby nutrition products
- Advising a leading manufacturer of baby nutrition products on regulatory, compliance and enforcement issues relating to its operations including an online portal intiative
- Advising a leading medical devices manufacturer on product recall and liability issues arising out of its supply of defective medical devices
- Advising a global specialty biopharmaceutical company on the setting up of a ‘greenfield’ pharmaceutical manufacturing site in Singapore
Intellectual Property
- Acting for and advising a leading British-based recruitment company on a trademark infringement case and obtaining a cost-effective and favourable settlement for the client
- Advising and acting for a shareholder of a local company in a cross-border copyright infringement case involving the online gaming world
Pro bono and community involvement
- Member of the Compensation Fund Committee, Law Society of Singapore since 2018: Advises Council on applications made by members of public for compensation against loss suffered
- State Court Mediator since 2016: Assisting the State Courts in the administration of justice as a mediator.
- Assisting Counsel of LASCO since 2016: Representing accused persons facing the death penalty for various offences, including murder and drug trafficking.
- Article in the leading trust law journal, Trust Law International (published in the April 2012 edition (Vol 26, Number 1) on The Control of Trust Protector
- Article in the Singapore Academy of Law Journal (published in the March 2010 edition) on Tax Avoidance in Singapore: A Critical Analysis.
https://www.asiaone.com/singapore/about-70-pines-club-members-sue-exklusiv-resorts
https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/real-estate/the-pines-club-members-sue-peter-kwee-for-damages
https://www.zaobao.com.sg/news/singapore/story20190915-989147
https://learn.asialawnetwork.com/2017/03/20/lawyer-feature-lau-kah-hee-from-derrick-wong-lim-bc-llp/
https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/pro-bono-help-over-the-phone
https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/courts-crime/criminal-references-rare-numbers-show
https://www.asiaone.com/singapore/ruling-may-have-serious-implications-shanmugam
https://lawgazette.com.sg/practice/tech-talk/tech-start-law-spotlight/