Alvin Kia Hong Sim

SIMI's goal is to collaborate with various stakeholders to raise and promote professional mediation standards in the ADR industry, in Singapore and beyond. It champions quality in the industry through the accreditation of mediation training and service providers, and mediators themselves.

I am responsible for its day to day direction and operations, from reviewing and reforming structures and processes to drive professional standards and building industry relations, to developing the finance, HR and communication functions.

Article : “Mediation of maritime disputes : Preserving Business Relationships and Continuity for Shipping Businesses” (co-authored with Martin Marini) – Published in Horizon (MPA Academy Newsletter) Nov 2023, at pgs 6-11.

Secretariat/Team lead, Pro-Enterprise Panel Secretariat : Supervising 6-7 person team managing varied feedback from businesses on government regulations, and helping assess numerous requests to support innovative business ideas via the First Mover Framework. Providing direction to staff on managing both business and agency stakeholders, framing issues so that a solution can be reached to help businesses reduce regulatory compliance costs. Working with comms team to communicate the outcome of these cases to industry.

Deskhead, Competition & Consumer Protection matters : Overseeing and contributing to positions on various initiatives concerning fair trading (e.g. consumer credit risks) and product safety, raised by the Comptition and Consumer Protection Commission of Singapore (CCCS), Enterprise Singapore (ESG) and Consumer Association of Singapore (CASE).

Policy staff interfacing/consulting with public sector, industry and international stakeholders to develop/manage various aspects of intellectual property policy.

Responsibilities include contributing to policy development of various areas of Singapore's IP infrastructure (including legislation reform and changes to procedures, administrative systems, etc) and advancing Singapore's IP regime.

Team manager for policy matters in copyright, IP enforcement and international affairs.

In-house legal counsel in Office of Legal Affairs, assisting Deputy General Counsel to provide legal advice on a range of corporate transactions; these often cover intellectual property issues.

Head of department of the Legal Policy & International Relations department.

Responsibilities included managing team boundaries, interfacing with principals/other agencies and resolving people issues to ensure department’s technical work over 5 areas is executed smoothly :

· General legal affairs for IPOS – post was de-facto General Counsel for IPOS

· International IP negotiations for trade agreements

· International legal policy for non-registerable intellectual property issues

· Copyright law

· International relations/engagement

Articles :

· “Anti-diversion measures under the TRIPS Protocol on Public Health” – published in [2008] 20 SAcLJ

· “Survey on Plant Variety Protection Regimes in APEC economies – completed and published on APEC IP Experts Group website in April 2008

· “Trading Ideas 2009” – published in IP Manager magazine No. 03/2009 (in German) – co-authored with Danielle Yeow

· “Competition and Intellectual Property Law in the Innovation Age : A Fine Balancing Act” – published in Singapore Law Gazette, July 2011 – co-authored with Danielle Yeow, Alvin Koh & Candice Lee

In-house legal counsel managing legal risks for NEA in a wide variety of corporate legal issues and transactions, and various legislation matters.

Corporate real estate practice, covering general conveyancing (commercial and residential properties), financing related property transactions, property due diligence for bank mergers and REITS, commercial leasing and housing developers’ projects.

General practice, covering both general litigation and general corporate/commercial matters; probate & administration of estates and family law. Appeared in the High Court and all Subordinate Courts. Gazetted as prosecutor acting on behalf of various town councils.