Liwen 

LEUNG

Liwen obtained his LLB (Upper Second Class Honours) and LLM (Maritime Law) degrees from NUS Law in 2017 and 2023 respectively. He was called to the Singapore Bar as an Advocate and Solicitor in 2018 after completing a training contract with a local law firm specialising in building and construction disputes. Liwen practised with the same firm prior to joining the Centre for Maritime Law in February 2020 as a Research Assistant. In February 2021, Liwen was promoted to a Research Associate and began contributing to the CML CMI database project.

Liwen has a strong interest and background in maritime and shipping law subjects, having obtained a distinction in Admiralty Practice for the Part B Bar Examinations 2017 and, as an undergraduate and postgraduate student at NUS Law, similar grades in Admiralty Law & Practice, Maritime Conflict of Laws, Carriage of Goods by Sea, Maritime Law, Law of the Marine Environment, Trade Finance Law, Law of Marine Insurance, and International Moots and other Competitions. Liwen was a member of the victorious International Maritime Law Arbitration Moot (IMLAM) team from NUS Law in 2017.

Presentations

• “Should there be a Negligence Exception to the Autonomy Principle for Letters of Credit?”, CML Lunch Seminar, NUS Law, 12 January 2022
• “Problems in Determining the Proper Law of the Contract in the Context of Letters of Credit”, CML Lunch Seminar, NUS Law, 22 September 2022
• “The Development of Singapore’s Admiralty Jurisdiction”, CML Lunch Seminar, NUS Law, 8 February 2023

Working Paper

• “Should There Be a Negligence Exception to the Autonomy Principle for Letters of Credit?”, (2023) CML Working Paper Series, CML-WPS-2302

• Admiralty Law and Practice
• Carriage of Goods by Sea
• Maritime Conflict of Laws
• Maritime Law
• Trade Finance Law

Research Project

Examining wrongful arrest under admiralty law: relevance, rules, reformation, routes, and ramifications.

Is the current approach for wrongful arrest under admiralty law unsatisfactory? If so, how should it be changed?

Admiralty law’s key feature is ship arrest: the ability of a claimant to arrest a defendant’s ship to obtain pre-judgment security for recognised maritime claims. A ship, however, may be arrested wrongfully, despite the claimant’s due diligence (if any). Perhaps the claimant relied upon a ship register stating that the defendant legally owned the ship but did not state that the ship was beneficially owned by an innocent party. Or perhaps the claim was subsequently found to be unmeritorious.

In such cases, the shipowner may attempt to claim damages for wrongful arrest. But these claims face the high threshold set by the The Evangelismos (1858) 12 Moo PC 352; 14 ER 945, which is still applied in many parts of the common law world today. Put simply, the action for the arrest must have been so poorly brought that it implies malice on the part of the claimant, or gross negligence that is equivalent to malice.

If malice cannot be shown, then the innocent shipowner would have lost use of its arrested ship, or incurred costs in providing alternative security, without receiving any proper compensation from the claimant despite the wrongful arrest. This apparent unfairness has been noticed by South Africa, Nigeria, and Australia. These jurisdictions made legislative reforms. Other common law jurisdictions, however, have not followed suit. Nevertheless, their courts have considered the possibility of judge-led reform. There is a multi-jurisdictional call from the courts for empirical research into the views of the ‘maritime community’ on wrongful arrest: The Vasiliy Golovnin [2008] SGCA 39, [2008] 4 SLR(R) 994 [121], [122], [134]; The Alkyon [2018] EWCA Civ 2760, [2019] QB 969 [95].

Working Paper

• “Should There Be a Negligence Exception to the Autonomy Principle for Letters of Credit?”, (2023) CML Working Paper Series, CML-WPS-2302