Alan Koh

Alan K Koh is an Assistant Professor of Law at the Division of Business Law, Nanyang Business School (NBS). Before joining NBS he was a Research Associate at the Centre for Asian Legal Studies (CALS) at the Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore (NUS Law), and a Sheridan Fellow at NUS Law. At NBS, he teaches Company Law & Corporate Governance.

He is the recipient of the 2018 Colin Picker Prize in Comparative Law (for best graduate student paper at the American Society of Comparative Law Younger Comparativists Committee Global Conference), the 2019 Asian Law Junior Faculty Workshop Best Paper Prize, and the 2021 Mid-Atlantic Academy of Legal Studies in Business Conference Best Paper Award (Runner-Up). He is also a finalist for the Holmes-Cardozo Award of the 2021 Academy of Legal Studies in Business Conference. His work has also been selected for the 2021 American Business Law Journal Invited Scholars Colloquium and the 2021 Stanford International Junior Faculty Forum. He was also elected an Associate Member of the International Academy of Comparative Law in 2021, the first Singaporean and one of the youngest scholars ever to receive this honour.

Alan's research focuses on comparative corporate law and governance, with particular interests in Singapore and Japan. More broadly, as a jurist trained mostly in common law but also partly in the civil law tradition, he is interested in comparative law and dispute resolution in Asia.

Current projects include a sole-authored monograph comparing shareholder withdrawal regimes in four jurisdictions, Shareholder Protection in Close Corporations (in production with Cambridge University Press), and papers on corporate purpose, one of which has been selected for various colloquia. His work is published in journals including the American Journal of Comparative Law, University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law, Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law, Law Quarterly Review, Modern Law Review, Journal of Corporate Law Studies, Lloyd's Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly, and Journal of Japanese Law. He also contributes to the company law entry for the Singapore Academy of Law Annual Review of Cases.

Alan earned degrees from the law faculties of the National University of Singapore (LL.B. (Hons.)), Boston University (LL.M.) (concurrently with the NUS LL.B.), and Goethe University Frankfurt (Dr. jur. Doctor of Law). He was a Max Planck Society-funded Visiting Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law (Hamburg, Germany), and has visited or taught at the law faculties of University of Tokyo, Nagoya University, and Osaka City University. He also teaches as visiting faculty at the University of Tokyo.

He is admitted to practice law as an Advocate & Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Singapore (currently non-practising), and fluent in Japanese and Chinese.

Education

• Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) with Honours National University of Singapore / NUS (2010 — 2014)
• Ludwig-Maximilians Universität München (2015 — 2015)
• The University of Tokyo (2012 — 2012)

Companies

• Assistant Professor Nanyang Business School (2019)
• Research Associate National University of Singapore (2017 — 2019)
• Practice Trainee Trident Law Corporation (2016 — 2017)
• Visiting Fellow Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law (2016 — 2016)
• Sheridan Fellow National University of Singapore (2014 — 2016)
• Senior Editor, Journal Sub-editor, Associate Editor Singapore Law Review (2012 — 2014)
• Research Assistant National University of Singapore (2011 — 2014)
• Intern Mori Hamada & Matsumoto (2012 — 2012)
• Editorial Assistant Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law (2012 — 2012)