Brunei, officially State of Brunei, and formally Brunei Darussalam, is a country in southeast Asia, situated on the northern coast of the island of Borneo.

At its AGM earlier in the year the Bailliage members agreed that Dr Colin Yee Cheng Ong KC should once again be the Bailli Délégué following the departure of the previous postholder, Nicoline Van Den Berg. At its meeting in Bordeaux on May 16th, the Conseil d’Administration (the International Board) unanimously approved his promotion.

An eminent lawyer
An eminent lawyer, Colin is senior partner at Dr Colin Ong Legal Services (Brunei), counsel at Eldan Law LLP (Singapore) and King’s Counsel at 36 Stone (London). He is a Chartered Arbitrator and Arbitration Fellow at various institutions especially in Asia.

Colin has court experience with important reported judgments pertaining to arbitration matters. He is a trilingual lawyer and the only English Silk able to conduct arbitration matters in Bahasa Indonesia, Malay and bilingual Chinese arbitrations.

Dr Ong is regularly instructed as counsel or arbitrator on major commercial, company, construction and IT related arbitrations within Bangladesh, Canada, Brunei, England, China, France, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, Mongolia, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Thailand, Qatar, the UAE, and Vietnam.

He is a visiting professor of civil law jurisdictions and has handled cases under many different governing laws across the world.

The first ASEAN national lawyer appointed English Queen’s Counsel (now King’s Counsel) and elected Master of the Bench of the Inner Temple (2010), Colin was appointed by the United Kingdom Secretary of State for International Trade as a UK nominee on the Panel of Arbitrators for the UK’s free trade agreements. Furthermore, he is the first English “silk” appointed by China’s Chief Justice to sit on the International Commercial Expert Committee of the Chinese International Commercial Court.

Chaîne career
Colin joined the Chaîne as a Chevalier in 2001. He became Chancelier in 2010, rising to be Bailli Délégué a year later. After four years leading the National Bailliage he stood down in 2015.

Marie Jones
International Vice-President