NEO 

Swee Suan, Dora

Dora Neo is an Associate Professor and the founding Director of the Faculty’s Centre for Banking & Finance Law (CBFL), which she led for some ten years. She is also Director of the Faculty’s LLM (Corporate and Financial Services Law) and the Graduate Diploma and Graduate Certificate in Corporate & Financial Services Law programmes. She was previously Vice-Dean (Research & Graduate Studies), when her responsibilities included initiating the transformation of the Faculty’s LLM programme. She was also Director of the Faculty’s Continuing Legal Education (CLE) Programme for several terms, during which she complemented CLE’s public service mission by expanding fee-earning programmes to generate income for the faculty.

She teaches contract law, credit & security law, and Singapore common law of contract. Her previous courses included international banking law, international business transactions, WTO law and commercial transactions. Her current research focuses on modernisation of trade finance, global developments in secured transactions law, consumer protection in the financial industry, and selected issues in contract law. Her research interests also include the liberalisation of trade in services under GATS and free trade agreements, particularly in the ASEAN region, and banking law and commercial law generally.

Her publications include Gullifer & Neo (eds) Secured Transactions Law in Asia: Principles, Perspectives and Reform (Hart Publishing, UK, 2021); Hare & Neo (eds), Trade Finance: Technology, Innovation and Documentary Credits (Oxford University Press, UK, 2021); Neo, Sauve & Streho, Services Trade in ASEAN (Cambridge University Press, UK, 2019); Neo, Tjio & Lan (eds), Financial Services Law & Regulation (Academy Publishing, Singapore, 2019), Booysen & Neo (eds), Can Banks Still Keep a Secret? Bank Secrecy in Financial Centres Around the World (Cambridge University Press, UK, 2017), Ellinger & Neo. The Law and Practice of Documentary Credits (Hart Publishing, UK, 2010), and journal articles and book chapters. Her work has been referred to by courts in Singapore and overseas.

She has researched at institutions such as the United Nations Commission for International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) in Vienna, Austria, and the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law in Hamburg, Germany, and has taught and presented papers in the UK, USA, Europe, Australia and Asia. Her past appointments include being Visiting Professor at the University of Aix-Marseille III, France, and Visiting Senior Fellow at Harris Manchester College, Oxford University. She was also Visiting Scholar at Harvard Law School, USA; Melbourne Law School, Australia; and Georgetown University Law Centre, Washington, DC, USA. She has taught regularly at the East China University of Political Science and Law in Shanghai, China, and was a member of the international academic faculty at the Centre for Transnational Legal Studies in London, UK. During her sabbatical leave in the 2025-6 academic year, she will spend Michaelmas Term at the University of Cambridge as an Academic Visitor at the Faculty of Law, and a Visiting Fellow at Wolfson College. Her other appointments during her sabbatical leave will include being a Visiting Scholar at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, and the University of Tokyo, Japan.

She was a Senate member of the Singapore Academy of Law for several terms, and also served on a number of the Academy’s committees, including the Legal Education and Studies Committee, Publication Committee, and Law Reform Committee, as well as a financial collateral sub-committee of the Law Reform Committee. She authored the banking law chapter of the Singapore Academy of Law Annual Review of Singapore cases from 2014 to 2023. She has been a member of the Accreditation Committee of the Singapore Institute of Legal Education (SILE) since the inception of its Continuing Professional Development programme in 2012.  She has also contributed more generally to government policy in Singapore as a member of the Injunctions Review Panel under the Consumer Protection (Fair Trading) Act, as well as at the Ministry of Law on secondment, and on national committees in areas including media policy and retail industry standards.

She was appointed by the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law (UNIDROIT) as a Correspondent for Singapore for two consecutive terms from 2022 to 2028. From 2021-2023, she served as an expert in the Working Group on the UNCITRAL-UNIDROIT Model Law on Warehouse Receipts (‘MLWR’), and in 2023, continued as a member of the Working Group to draft the Guide to Enactment for the MLWR. She was invited by the Attorney-General’s Chambers of Singapore to attend the 40th and 41st Sessions of UNICTRAL Working Group 1 (Warehouse Receipts) as an expert advisor on the Singapore delegation in Vienna, Austria (September 2023) and New York City, USA (February 2024). She is also an Advisory Committee Member of the UNIDROIT Transnational Law Centre, and an expert on UNIDROIT’s Workstream Committee on Access to Credit in preparation for the Centenary of the Institute in 2026.

She has conducted training for professionals and government officials in the areas of contract law, banking law and world trade law. From 2007 to 2010, she was an instructor for the World Trade Organisation’s Regional Trade Policy Course for the Asia-Pacific. In addition to convening, chairing and participating in many events organised by CBFL and NUS Law, she has spoken at conferences and seminars overseas, including recent events in Tokyo at the invitation of APEC and the US State Department, in India (virtual presentation) at the invitation of UNIDROIT, in Seoul at the invitation of the Korean Ministry of Justice, in New York City at the invitation of UNCITRAL, and at Cambridge University at the invitation of the long-running Cambridge International Symposium on Economic Crime.

She is a first-class honours graduate from Oxford University and holds an LLM from Harvard Law School. She has a Certificate in Private Banking from the Wealth Management Institute in Singapore, and a Certificate in Real Estate Finance from the Department of Real Estate, NUS. She was called to the English Bar at Gray’s Inn in London, as well as the Singapore Bar, and practised law in Singapore before joining NUS. An avid traveller, she enjoys exploring new territories.

• Trade finance law
• Secured transactions law
• Consumer finance law
• Law of payments
• Contract law
• FTAs and trade in services
• Banking and finance law
• Commercial law