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Ian McEwin is Visiting Scholar Professor with the EW Barker Centre for Law and Business (EWBCLB) and Centre for Banking & Finance Law (CBFL) at the National University of Singapore Faculty of Law. Until recently, he was (Honorary) Professor of Law at the Australian National University. He holds both a law degree (Hons 1) and a PhD in economics from the Australian National University (ANU). He has been admitted as a Legal Practitioner in the Australian Capital Territory and is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Directors.
He now specialises in the law and economics of competition, corporate, and intellectual property laws. His PhD thesis was on the law and economics of tort law. For nine months in 1985, he was a visiting scholar at the Nobel Prize winner George Stigler’s Centre at the University of Chicago. On returning to Australia, Ian was invited by Maureen Brunt, the doyen of Australian competition economists, to co-teach with her in courses in regulation and competition law at Monash University in Melbourne.
He was appointed a Member of the Advisory Group for the Australian Law Reform Commission’s Reference on the Adversarial System (other members included The Hon Sir Anthony Mason, Sir Lawrence Street, judges of the Federal Court and Chief Justices of State Supreme Courts including the Hon Justice Geoffrey Davies, Queensland Court of Appeal). He also wrote two major reports for the New Zealand Business Roundtable on accident compensation and the regulation of the New Zealand legal profession.
Ian was Foundation Director of the Centre for Law and Economics at ANU and has been an expert witness in major litigation in Australia and New Zealand in competition law, damages valuation, etc., including the major Superleague Case. In 2002, he was recruited by the Singapore Ministry of Trade & Industry to help with the design and implementation of Singapore’s competition law (for two years). From 2004 to 2008, he was the foundation Chief Economist (Assistant Chief Executive) for the Singapore Competition Commission. He subsequently became Visiting Professor of Law at the National University of Singapore for four years, teaching Asian Competition Law and Law and Economics. He was also appointed a Member of the Singapore Copyright Tribunal during that time. The Former Chairman of the Competition Commission of Singapore said:
“You played an instrumental role in putting in place an operational framework for the implementation of the Act. You were pivotal in steering the agency towards adopting a balanced approach to competition law … You have also contributed much in developing the CCS’s profile as a competent and dynamic agency in ASEAN and internationally.”
After leaving Singapore, he became a Visiting Professor of Law in the Law Faculty at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok for two years and the Khazanah Nasional Chair of Regulatory Studies at the University of Malaya for two years (and also a Visiting Professor of Law teaching Malaysian competition law).
He has taught in AUSAID courses in China and for the German GIZ in Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia, Lao PDR, the Philippines and Vietnam). He also wrote three of the Guidelines for the Malaysian Competition Commission on “Market Definition”, “Anti-Competitive Agreements” and “Abuse of Dominance” and the first draft of their Guidelines on “Intellectual Property”. He also edited the Handbook on Competition Policy and Law in ASEAN for Business 2013 for the ASEAN Secretariat.
He has taught on several courses on economics for competition law for judges and regulators in Asia with George Mason Law School’s Global Antitrust Institute with Judge Doug Ginsberg, until recently Chief Justice of the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, Joshua Wright, ex-Commissioner of the U.S. Federal Trade Commissioner and Bruce Kobayashi, Economist at George Mason Law School. In 2016, he also taught in an economics course for judges run by the OECD in Seoul, Korea, with former French Judge Frederic Jenny and Canadian judge Mr. Justice Gascon. In 2017, he co-chaired a two-day course in economics for Judges of the People’s Supreme Court of China in Beijing with Bill Kovacic. Eleanor Fox invited him to speak at the conference “Competition and Globalisation in Developing Countries”, NYU Law School, New York, 28 October 2016 (as well as in previous conferences in 2014 and 2015).
He has published widely in Asian competition law, including editing an acclaimed book (described by Valentine Korah as ‘superb’) Getting the Balance Right: Intellectual Property, Competition Law and Economics in Asia (ed). Hart Publishing, Oxford (2011). He is a Member of the Advisory Boards of China Antitrust Law Journal and the Global Antitrust Institute at George Mason University.
In recent years, he has undertaken consulting for the UAE Prime Minister’s Department, assessing the progress of the UAE’s Ministry of Economy. He has also reviewed the Ministry of Economic Development for the Abu Dhabi Government.
Law and economics of competition, corporate, and intellectual property laws