Patrick Dahm

That German-Singapore Lawyer

Category: Singapore

Damage Prevention Costs in Maritime Logistics: German Law

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On 25 March 2026

In Law, Scribblings, Singapore

I had a very good time present­ing a paper at the 23rd Inter­na­tion­al Con­gress of Mari­time Arbit­rat­ors (ICMA XXIII) yes­ter­day: ‘Reim­burse­ment of Dam­age Pre­ven­tion Costs in Mari­time Logist­ics in the Event of an Anti­cip­ated Breach of Duty Accord­ing to (Cor­rectly Applied) Ger­man Law’. For any­one inter­ested, I am shar­ing the full paper (PDF) in a slightly expan­ded ver­sion: one para­graph of exactly 99 words at the very end that I had to cut from the con­fer­ence ver­sion to meet the rig­or­ous word lim­it, plus Eng­lish trans­la­tions of the rel­ev­ant Ger­man stat­utory pro­vi­sions in the footnotes.

Dr Patrick Dahm at the podium presenting his paper on damage prevention costs in maritime logistics at ICMA XXIII, Singapore, March 2026

Dissertation Summarised

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On 5 December 2025

In Law, Scribblings, Singapore

When my dis­ser­ta­tion came out late last year, a few col­leagues asked why a work so focused on Singa­pore, where Eng­lish is the lan­guage of the law, was writ­ten in Ger­man. Well, it was a Ger­man doc­tor­ate, plus the dis­ser­ta­tion was inten­ded as a con­tri­bu­tion to the debate on com­mer­cial courts in Ger­many. That’s why.

Still, they had a point, so I put togeth­er an Eng­lish sum­mary: ‘Should a Dis­pute Be Brought to the Singa­pore Inter­na­tion­al Com­mer­cial Court or to Arbitration?’

I’m pleased to share that it has now been pub­lished in this year’s Zeits­chrift für Zivil­prozess Inter­na­tion­al (ZZP Int (29) 2024, pp. 258 – 312). If the top­ic interests you, do have a look.

The Distribution Law of Singapore

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On 3 February 2025

In Law, Scribblings, Singapore

Hear ye, hear ye! The fifth edi­tion of Hand­buch Ver­triebs­recht (Hand­book of Dis­tri­bu­tion Law), edited by Mar­tinek, Semler and Flohr, has been pub­lished. It’s a tome of 3,155 (plus LXXVII) pages that once again provides a sys­tem­at­ic and detailed present­a­tion of this area of law, both nation­ally (from a Ger­man per­spect­ive) and inter­na­tion­ally. One of the new addi­tions from my pen is a chapter on Singa­pore, which deals com­pre­hens­ively with its com­mer­cial agency, author­ised deal­er, fran­chise and com­pet­i­tion laws.

SICC or Arbitration?

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On 9 November 2024

In Law, Singapore

My doc­tor­al dis­ser­ta­tion has been pub­lished as an e‑book and in print. Its title trans­lates as ‘SICC or Arbit­ra­tion? A Com­par­is­on of Pro­ceed­ings in the Singa­pore Inter­na­tion­al Com­mer­cial Court with the Advant­ages and Dis­ad­vant­ages of Inter­na­tion­al Arbit­ra­tion Pro­ceed­ings’. It does what it says on the tin, so here’s just a bit of background.

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Courts and Tribunals and the Amicable Settlement of Disputes in Singapore

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On 22 September 2023

In Law, Singapore

May courts or arbit­ral tribunals engage in the amic­able set­tle­ment of dis­putes between parties? More spe­cific­ally, may a Singa­pore court or arbit­ral tribunal act­ively do so? What do the inquis­it­ori­al pro­cesses men­tioned in the law have to do with it?

I have set out my thoughts in an art­icle that the Ger­man Arbit­ra­tion Journ­al (Schieds­VZ) has just pub­lished in its September/October 2023 issue.

Sup­ple­ment­al: Kluwer Arbit­ra­tion Blog has pub­lished a sum­mary of the article.

The galley proofs of my article ‘On the Powers of Courts and Arbitral Tribunals in the Amicable Settlement of Disputes by the Parties: A Look at Singapore and Selected Other Countries’. Inquisitorial processes are the key.

Wirtschaftsverwaltungsrecht Singapur, Anyone?

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On 23 September 2022

In Law, Singapore

A law­yer shall not live by arbit­ra­tion alone (at least not this one). As much as I enjoy arbit­ra­tion, I also enjoy advising cli­ents in an area of law that has, over time, become a pro­fes­sion­al hobby­horse: eco­nom­ic admin­is­trat­ive law. This is the area of law that empowers or requires gov­ern­ment agen­cies to mon­it­or or inter­vene in the private sec­tor. The eco­nom­ic admin­is­trat­ive law of Singa­pore, in Ger­man: das Wirt­schafts­ver­wal­tungs­recht von Singapur. Repeat after me.

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Singapore’s New Law on Electronic Bills of Lading

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On 24 May 2021

In Law, Singapore

Peking, a steel-hulled four-masted barque, was one of the last generation of cargo-carrying iron-hulled sailing ships. She probably carried many bills of lading.
New tech­no­logy on the horizon

Singa­pore has adop­ted the UNCITRAL Mod­el Law on Elec­tron­ic Trans­fer­able Records, in a bid to get elec­tron­ic bills of lad­ing (eBOL) off the ground after pre­vi­ous efforts failed. The Singa­pore Cham­ber of Mari­time Arbit­ra­tion has pub­lished the ori­gin­al Eng­lish ver­sion of my art­icle on the new law. Trans­port­recht, the trans­port­a­tion law journ­al, has pub­lished the Ger­man ver­sion.

My Year in Review, at Home, at Work, and in Other Places

By

On 27 December 2020

In Singapore

A lot went down in 2020. Bought and ren­ov­ated an HDB flat. Became a CIArb fel­low and an SMC-accred­ited medi­at­or. Oh, and I got mar­ried. A short, per­son­al end-of-year review sor­ted by theme.

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Enforceability of Foreign Emergency Awards in Singapore

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On 26 August 2019

In Law, Singapore

An arbit­ral award made by an emer­gency arbit­rat­or sit­ting in Singa­pore is enforce­able in Singa­pore. The law is clear on this.

How­ever, the law is less clear on for­eign emer­gency awards. Are they enforce­able in Singapore?

Patrick Dahm (emergency arbitrator, among other things) caught by a CCTV camera taking a picture of himself on the CCTV screen

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Law, Lies, and Videotape

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On 10 May 2019

In Law, Singapore

I was work­ing for Samuel Seow Law Cor­por­a­tion when its founder and man­aging dir­ect­or assaul­ted female staff mem­bers in his office last year. When videos of the incid­ent sur­faced a few days ago, my phone was on fire. A few sen­sa­tion­al­ists were fish­ing for gos­sip (wrong num­ber, guys), but the major­ity had an actu­al desire to talk. For the first time, I couldn’t answer every­one who con­tac­ted me in time. That’s why I wrote this post.

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Bugis

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On 20 September 2018

In Singapore

After eight years of liv­ing in the Orch­ard area, and two years in Novena before that, I’ve moved to a more down-to-earth part of Singa­pore: Bugis. That once infam­ous dis­trict, which to this day retains its gruff char­ac­ter. I guess I was drawn to it to com­pensate for all these years in Atasland.

Special Operations Command van parking in Bugis

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Priyageetha Dia's golden flags

Gilded with Law

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On 28 March 2018

In Art, Law, Singapore

Priy­ageetha Dia has gil­ded Singa­pore with gold foil, again. And a lot of people have called her urb­an art inter­ven­tion illeg­al, again. But what if she and her art had been on safe leg­al ground all along? What if it wasn’t so clear wheth­er the remov­al of her golden flags was leg­al or not?

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Initial Coin Offering: an Inaccurate Term and an Imperfect Regulator

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On 19 March 2018

In Law, Singapore

Patrick Dahm flaunting his Aviato t-shirt

This is my speech at the first Com­pu­ta­tion­al Law & Block­chain Fest­iv­al – Singa­pore Node on 17 March 2018. In it, I tried to explain what ini­tial coin offer­ings are, why gov­ern­ments all over the world eye them curi­ously, and how gov­ern­ments reg­u­late them – if they reg­u­late them. I also ques­tioned why brick and mor­tar gov­ern­ments reg­u­late some­thing so digital.

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The Arts and the Law in Singapore

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On 7 February 2018

In Art, Law, Singapore

Last Fri­day we were cel­eb­rat­ing the offi­cial open­ing of our new office, arts and enter­tain­ment law firm that we are. This is the speech I gave before the party took off.

Group picture with Patrick Dahm and party guests

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Close-up of Priyageetha Dia's golden staircase at Jalan Rajah

The Art of Walking a Fine and Golden Line

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On 12 March 2017

In Art, Law, Singapore

Was Priy­ageetha Dia’s golden stair­case art or van­dal­ism? Wrong ques­tion, in my view. Some­thing can be both. Just that this art wasn’t.

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Singapore to Ratify Hague Convention on Choice of Court Agreements

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On 10 May 2016

In Law, Singapore

Here’s my piece on Singa­pore’s rat­i­fic­a­tion of this Con­ven­tion on Peter Ber­t’s dis­pute res­ol­u­tion blog.

The National Coat of Arms of Singapore
The Supreme Court of Singapore

Singapurischer Internationaler Handelsgerichtshof eröffnet

By

On 7 January 2015

In Law, Singapore

Anfang 2015 wurde der Singapur­ische Inter­na­tionale Han­dels­gericht­shof (Singa­pore Inter­na­tion­al Com­mer­cial Court oder SICC) eröffnet. Das Gericht ist als Teil des singapur­ischen Supreme Court für inter­na­tionale Han­dels­sachen zuständig und ver­eint schiedsgericht­liche und gericht­liche Ele­mente. Singapur will dam­it seine Pos­i­tion als inter­na­tionales Streit­sch­lich­tung­szen­trum ausbauen.

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