Researcher

Dr May Fong Cheong

Biography

May is an Associate Professor in the School of Private and Commercial Law, Faculty of Law and Justice. Her main research areas are contract law, commercial law, consumer law, unfair contracts, remedies, restitution/unjust enrichment and comparative Asian law. May’s other research interest is competition law particularly on the legal and regulatory frameworks of competition law regimes in ASEAN member states. May has taught a wide range of...view more

May is an Associate Professor in the School of Private and Commercial Law, Faculty of Law and Justice. Her main research areas are contract law, commercial law, consumer law, unfair contracts, remedies, restitution/unjust enrichment and comparative Asian law. May’s other research interest is competition law particularly on the legal and regulatory frameworks of competition law regimes in ASEAN member states. May has taught a wide range of subjects including principles of private law, contracts, consumer protection, economic torts and unfair contracts. She has supervised PhD and LLM candidates in private law and is currently co-supervising a PhD candidate on smart contracts.

May is also an Adjunct Professor at the Faculty of Law, Multimedia University Malaysia and was formerly Deputy Head of School, Thomas More Law School, Australian Catholic University. May was also formerly a Professor and Dean at the Faculty of Law, University of Malaya, and had previously practiced as a commercial litigation lawyer at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia after being admitted as an Advocate & Solicitor of the High Court of Malaya.

May is author of Australian Contract Law: Principles and Cases (Lawbook Co, 2020) and Contract Law in Malaysia (Sweet & Maxwell Asia, 2010). She is also the co-author with Yin Harn Lee, of Civil Remedies (Sweet & Maxwell Asia, 2nd ed, 2016) and with Rafiah Salim, of Evidence Law in Malaysia and Singapore: Cases and Commentary (Lexis Nexis Malaysia, 2013). May has also contributed to chapters in the Studies in the Contract Laws of Asia series published by Oxford University Press, and to chapters on competition law in The Regionalisation of Competition Law and Policy within the ASEAN Economic Community (Cambridge University Press, 2018) and in the Research Handbook on Asian Competition Law (Edward Elgar). She has written numerous peer-reviewed articles on contract and consumer law in publications including Journal of Contract Law and Competition and Consumer Law Journal, and on gender issues published in the Journal of Law and Society and Feminist Legal Studies.

My Grants

The Australian Catholic University Teaching Development Grant (2021) on Embedding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Knowledge and Perspectives in the Law Curriculum (with Dr Joe Campana)

My Qualifications

PhD (Sydney): Unfair Contracts in Malaysia
LLM (NUS)
LLB (Hons) (Malaya)
Diploma in Shariah Law and Practice (IIUM)
Graduate Certificate in Higher Education (ACU)
Fellowship (FHEA)

My Awards

2021: recipient of the Australian Catholic University Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning
2021: recipient of the Faculty of Law and Business, Australian Catholic University Innovation Excellence Award

My Research Activities

My research areas are contract law, commercial law, consumer law, unfair contracts, remedies and comparative Asian law (including legal transplantation) and has extended to smart contracts and gender issues. My other research interest is competition law particularly on the legal and regulatory frameworks of competition law regimes in ASEAN member states.

My current research focuses on legal transplantation of colonial legislation (of English law) and its continuing impact to the contract laws in India and Malaysia (the Indian Contract Act 1872 and the Malaysian Contracts Act 1950). Another subject of my research is gender equality which I have jointly published from perspectives of women directors in Malaysia, and marriage transmitted debts impacting women in China.