Cavinder Bull SC

About Cavinder Bull SC

Cavinder Bull SC is the Chief Executive Officer of Drew & Napier LLC, one of Singapore's largest law firms. Appointed Senior Counsel in 2008 at age 39 — among the youngest to receive the honour — he has built a practice spanning complex commercial litigation and international arbitration over more than three decades. Bull also co-heads the firm's Competition Law and Regulatory Practice and serves as arbitrator in investor-state disputes across multiple jurisdictions.

Bull attended Anglo-Chinese School (Independent) and Anglo-Chinese Junior College before reading Jurisprudence at Trinity College, Oxford, graduating with a First Class Honours BA in 1992. He finished fourth in the Bar examinations in England and Wales, was called to the Bar in 1993, and topped the Singapore Bar examination before admission in 1994. After clerking as Justices' Law Clerk to Chief Justice Yong Pung How, he was awarded a Lee Kuan Yew Scholarship to Harvard Law School, completing his LLM in 1996 and qualifying as an attorney in New York the same year. He then practised as a litigation associate at Sullivan & Cromwell in New York before returning to Drew & Napier in late 1997. He was made partner in 1998 and Director in 2002, and took over as CEO in August 2017.

Between June 2025 and May 2026, Bull appeared as counsel in 8 cases across Singapore's courts, with matters before the High Court (4 cases), the Singapore International Commercial Court (2 cases), the Court of Appeal (1 case), and the International Commercial Court of Appeal (1 case). His recent docket covers arbitration, limitation of actions, insolvency law, injunctions, civil procedure, and statutory interpretation. Among his most prominent matters are the US$926 million Ivanishvili v Credit Suisse judgment before the SICC for breach of trust, the S$3.5 billion Hin Leong Trading liquidation judgment against founder Lim Oon Kuin and his family, and the US$600–800 million De La Sala family trust dispute whose High Court judgment produced landmark guidance on witness coaching. He also led a US$3 billion international arbitration for Sharp Corporation involving emergency arbitrator proceedings across multiple jurisdictions, and acted in three Indian Premier League broadcasting-rights arbitrations valued at over US$1.2 billion.

Bull's recognition spans virtually every major legal directory. He holds Legal 500 Hall of Fame status in both dispute resolution and international arbitration, has been ranked Chambers Band 1 for litigation for sixteen consecutive years and Band 1 for arbitration in the most recent edition, and was named Lexology Index Global Elite Thought Leader in both arbitration and commercial litigation for 2026. Further accolades include Asian Legal Business Dispute Resolution Lawyer of the Year (2025), Lexology Commercial Litigation Lawyer of the Year (2025), The Asia Legal Awards Litigator of the Year (2025), Best Lawyers Litigation Lawyer of the Year for Singapore (2025), and the Benchmark Litigation Asia-Pacific Hall of Fame Award (2022).

Bull serves as Vice President of the SIAC Court of Arbitration and sits on the ICCA Governing Board, the ICSID Panel of Arbitrators, and the KCAB International Panel of Arbitrators. He is a Fellow of the Singapore Academy of Law, a Board Member of the Singapore Institute of Legal Education, and an Advisory Council Member of the NUS Faculty of Law. He previously chaired the SGX Disciplinary Committee from 2017 to 2023 and served on the World Bank Sanctions Board from 2018 to 2023. His earlier public-sector directorships included Singapore Technologies Electronics, the National Healthcare Group, Singapore University of Technology and Design, and the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority of Singapore.