Private Client Disputes
“R&T has a strong private client and family practice.”
The Legal 500 Asia Pacific
Rajah & Tann is committed to protecting and preserving your wealth and legacy. Our private wealth dispute resolution team helps clients navigate some of the most difficult and sensitive events they may face.
Singapore is Asia’s leading wealth management hub through which affluent individuals and families hold, manage, and distribute assets, investments, and business interests spanning multiple jurisdictions. When conflicts arise, clients require solutions tailored to their wealth structures, family dynamics, and long-term legacy objectives.
Whether a potential conflict arises from a deteriorating marriage, a contested estate, a failed investment, or disagreements within a family business, our private wealth dispute resolution team provides access to market-leading lawyers, prudent advice, and fearless advocacy — helping clients avoid disputes where possible and resolve them decisively when necessary.
Why Rajah & Tann
Clients engage us because we understand what is at stake beyond the financials.
Anchored
We provide steady, clear-headed guidance in emotionally charged and high-pressure situations, with discretion.
Realistic
We focus on outcomes, not process — delivering commercially sound and durable solutions.
Experienced
We are deeply familiar with complex wealth structures, including trusts, funds, local and offshore holding companies, and family office arrangements.
Transnational
We regularly handle cross-jurisdictional disputes and coordinate seamlessly across Asia and key offshore centres.
Our Clients
- High-net-worth individuals and families
- Beneficiaries, trustees, and protectors
- Founders and principals of closely-held businesses
- Family offices and private fiduciaries
- Professional advisers seeking specialist dispute support
Our Services
Family & Matrimonial Disputes
We act in complex family and matrimonial disputes involving significant assets, business interests, trusts, and cross-border elements.
Our work includes disputes arising from divorce and separation, asset division, maintenance, and related proceedings involving trusts, family companies, and third-party interests. We are experienced in managing matters where financial issues intersect with highly sensitive personal and reputational concerns.
Where appropriate, we pursue negotiated and alternative dispute resolution outcomes to preserve privacy and minimise disruption. When litigation is unavoidable, we act decisively to protect our clients’ interests.
We also advise on dispute-avoidance strategies and assist in the preparation of pre- and post-nuptial agreements.
Estate Disputes
We advise and represent clients in disputes relating to wills and estates.
This includes contested wills and letters of administration, challenges based on lack of capacity or undue influence, disputes over estate administration, and claims by beneficiaries or dependants. We frequently handle matters involving multi-jurisdictional estates and complex asset structures.
Our approach balances technical rigour with sensitivity to family dynamics, aiming to resolve disputes efficiently while safeguarding the integrity of the estate and the deceased’s intentions.
We also advise on succession planning and assist in the preparation of wills.
Mental Capacity Disputes
We act in disputes concerning mental capacity and decision-making, including matters involving elderly or vulnerable individuals.
Our experience covers applications relating to capacity assessments, the validity of transactions, disputes over powers of attorney, deputyship proceedings, and allegations of undue influence or financial abuse.
These matters demand discretion, care, and sound judgment. We work closely with families and advisers to resolve issues responsibly while ensuring that the interests of the individual concerned are properly protected.
Trust and Asset Management Disputes
We regularly advise trustees, asset managers, beneficiaries, protectors, and family offices in disputes involving ownership and control of personal and familial assets.
Our work includes disputes over trust administration, fiduciary duties, investment decisions, information rights, distributions, and the removal or appointment of trustees. We frequently handle disputes involving offshore trusts and coordinate proceedings across multiple jurisdictions.
We combine technical trust expertise with a practical understanding of asset management and governance considerations.
Investment Disputes
We advise and represent clients in disputes arising from private and institutional investments, including those involving significant personal wealth, family office structures, and cross-border arrangements.
Our experience includes disputes relating to failed or underperforming investments, misrepresentation and non-disclosure, breaches of mandate, fiduciary and advisory duties, fund and partnership interests, and disputes involving private banks, asset managers, investment advisers, and co-investors.
We are well placed to handle matters involving complex financial products, layered investment structures, and multiple jurisdictions. Our approach is strategic and commercially grounded — focused on recovery, risk management, and efficient resolution while taking into account reputational and relational considerations.
Where appropriate, we pursue negotiated outcomes and alternative dispute resolution. Where necessary, we act decisively in litigation and arbitration proceedings to protect our clients’ interests.
Family Business Disputes
We act in disputes involving family-owned and closely-held businesses, where commercial disagreements are often compounded by personal and generational dynamics.
Our experience includes shareholder and partnership disputes, deadlocks, exits, valuation issues, allegations of oppressive conduct, and succession-related conflicts. We advise founders, family members, and boards at critical moments where control, continuity, and legacy are at stake.
Our objective is to resolve disputes in a manner that preserves enterprise value while providing clarity and finality.
Early Intervention & Dispute Avoidance
Many private wealth disputes can be avoided — or significantly contained — through early, strategic intervention.
We regularly advise clients at pre-dispute stages, where relationships may be strained but positions have not yet hardened. This includes identifying legal and commercial risks, stress-testing proposed transactions or estate arrangements, and advising on governance, documentation, and communication strategies designed to minimise future conflict.
By intervening early, we help clients preserve control, protect confidentiality, and reduce the financial and emotional costs associated with escalation. Where disputes are unavoidable, early involvement allows us to shape strategy from the outset and improve prospects for resolution.
Concierge and Crisis Management Services
We provide ultra-high-net-worth individuals and families with discreet and coordinated support in urgent, complex or high-stakes situations. Matters affecting private clients rarely arise in isolation; they often involve overlapping family, business, reputational and cross-border considerations. When they arise, we mobilise the full capabilities of the Rajah & Tann Asia regional platform to rapidly provide solutions tailored to our client’s wider interests.
We advise on a wide range of urgent and confidential matters, including regulatory inquiries, reputational risks, criminal investigations, cyber and data incidents, internal family conflicts and other situations requiring careful judgment and absolute discretion. Working closely with colleagues across our disputes, corporate, regulatory and private wealth practices across the region, we provide strategic guidance while helping clients manage risk, preserve confidentiality and resolve matters in the most effective and discreet manner possible.
Clients benefit from direct access to a senior relationship partner who serves as a single point of contact and coordinates full capabilities of the Rajah & Tann Asia platform when needed.
A Confidential Conversation
Private wealth disputes are rarely just legal problems. They are personal, complex, and often time-sensitive.
If you are facing a potential dispute — or wish to address emerging risks before they escalate — we invite you to speak with us in confidence. Early advice can make a decisive difference.
All enquiries are treated with absolute discretion.
Related Links
Recognition
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Matrimonial and Family Law Firm of the YearALB SE Asia Law Awards (2020 & 2025)
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Band 1 – Private Wealth LawChambers High Net Worth (2024)
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Band 1 – Family Offices & Funds StructuringChambers High Net Worth (2023 & 2024)
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Tier 1 – Inheritance & Succession, Private Wealth ManagementThe Straits Times Singapore’s Best Law Firms (2026)
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Tier 1 – Private Wealth & Family LawThe Legal 500 Asia Pacific (2022-2026)
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Tier 1 – Private ClientBenchmark Litigation Asia-Pacific (2025)
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Tier 1 – Family and MatrimonialBenchmark Litigation Asia Pacific (2025)
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Tier 1 – Family LawThe Straits Times Singapore’s Best Law Firms (2026)
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"R&T has a strong private client and family practice."The Legal 500 Asia Pacific 2025
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"Rajah & Tann Singapore has a strong family office practice. The team provides services that establish, advise on and restructure family offices."Chambers High Net Worth (2024)
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"Rajah & Tann Singapore provides high net worth individuals with business succession planning and trusts advice. The firm also advises financial institutions and the owners of closely held businesses."Chambers High Net Worth (2024)
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"Advises a substantial number of ultra-high-net-worth individuals and wealthy families in Asia and worldwide, along with a range of institutional clients. It continues to work intensively in the establishment of family offices and in business succession planning. It has a prestigious record in wills and probate, family and matrimonial law, real estate, integrated tax, and trusts and estate wealth planning and structuring, among other areas."The Legal 500 Asia-Pacific (2024)
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"The team is very knowledgeable on all matters trust and tax related in Singapore and are one of the first firms you think of for advice. [They] provide first-class trust and tax advice in Singapore."The Legal 500 Asia-Pacific (2024)
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"R&T team takes a practical and sound approach to its legal advice. In an increasing complex regulatory and fast evolving legal changes, R&T maintains its agility and is at the forefront of keeping clients informed."The Legal 500 Asia-Pacific (2024)
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"The Rajah & Tann team is able to deliver robust and clear advice to clients, and their grasp of Singapore tax risks in particular is strong given the background of their lead partner who used to head the legal team at the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore."The Legal 500 Asia-Pacific (2024)
R&T has a strong private client and family practice."
Our Private Client Disputes Team
Head, Private Client Disputes
