Asialaw Profiles (2020)

Aviation and Shipping - Outstanding
Banking and Finance - Highly Recommended
Banking and Financial Services - Outstanding
Consumer Goods and Services - Outstanding
Capital Markets - Highly Recommended
Competition & Antitrust - Outstanding
Construction - Outstanding
Corporate/M&A - Highly Recommended
Dispute Resolution - Outstanding
Energy - Recommended
Infrastructure - Outstanding
Insurance - Recommended
Intellectual Property - Highly Recommended
Investment Funds - Highly Recommended
Labour and Employment - Outstanding
Private Equity - Highly Recommended
Real Estate - Outstanding
Regulatory - Highly Recommended
Restructuring and Insolvency - Outstanding
Tax - Highly Recommended
Technology and Telecommunications - Outstanding

Leading Lawyers:

Andre Yeap, SC - Dispute Resolution (Elite practitioner)
Angela Lim - Banking & Finance (Elite practitioner)
Arnold Tan - Investment Funds (Elite practitioner)
Chia Kim Huat - Capital Markets, Corporate/M&A (Elite practitioner)
Chua Choon King - Shipping (Distinguished practitioner)
Danny Ong - Dispute Resolution, Restructuring and Insolvency (Distinguished practitioner)
Desmond Wee - Labour and Employment (Distinguished practitioner)
Evelyn Wee - Capital Markets (Distinguished practitioner)
Francis Xavier, SC, PBM - Dispute Resolution (Elite practitioner)
Gregory Vijayendran, SC - Dispute Resolution (Distinguished practitioner)
Jonathan Oon - Shipping (Distinguished practitioner)
Murali Pillai SC - Labour and Employment (Distinguished practitioner)
Kala Anandarajah, PBM - Competition & Antitrust (Elite practitioner)
Kendall Tan - Shipping (Distinguished practitioner)
Lau Kok Keng - Intellectual Property (Distinguished practitioner)
Lee Eng Beng, SC - Restructuring and Insolvency (Elite practitioner)
Loh Chun Kiat - Corporate/M&A (Notable practitioner)
Norman Ho - Real Estate (Elite practitioner)
Patrick Ang - Restructuring & Insolvency (Elite practitioner)
Rajesh Sreenivasan - Technology and Telecommunications (Elite practitioner)
Sandy Foo - Corporate/M&A (Distinguished practitioner)
Shemane Chan - Energy, Infrastructure (Distinguished practitioner)
Sim Kwan Kiat - Restructuring and Insolvency (Distinguished practitioner)
Soh Lip San - Construction (Distinguished practitioner)
Steve Tan - Technology and Telecommunications (Distinguished practitioner)
Terence Choo - Banking & Finance (Distinguished practitioner)
Toh Kian Sing, SC - Dispute Resolution (Elite practitioner)
Vikna Rajah - Tax (Distinguished practitioner)

Analysis:

Banking and Finance
Acted for the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ and NEC Capital Solutions, the arrangers and financiers, in the financing for the project to develop, construct, complete, own, operate and maintain a state of the art, high capacity fibre-optic submarine cable system connecting Japan, Guam and Australia, by way of syndicated senior, mezzanine and junior loan financing and equity contributions by sponsors and other individual and corporate investors into a Singapore incorporated SPV.

Acted for RHB Bank in the world’s largest Islamic bilateral hotel financing deal and Singapore’s first Islamic real estate financing to refinance the past acquisition of Sofitel SO. This deal is also a landmark deal as in the past hospitality-related assets were considered taboo to be used for Islamic financing as not all income is deemed to be Shariah-compliant.

Capital Markets
Acted for the issuer, Koufu Group, and the vendor, Jun Yuan Holdings, in the IPO and listing of Koufu on the Singapore Exchange Securities Trading.

Construction
Advised Facebook, on its $1 billion investment to construct its first Asian data centre in Singapore. The project adds to Facebook’s growing presence in the ASEAN region and received support from various Singapore government agencies including the Economic Development Board of Singapore and JTC Corporation.

Corporate/M&A
Acted as Singapore legal counsel to GIC in an $11.9 billion acquisition of all the issued ordinary shares in the capital of Global Logistics Properties by Nesta Investment Holdings by way of a scheme of arrangement.

Acted for Barito Pacific in its acquisition of a 66.7% shareholding interest in Star Energy Group Holdings from Prajogo Pangestu, for a total value of $755 million.

Competition & Antitrust
Advised Toh Thye San Farm in making written and oral representations to the Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore (CCCS) in relation to a proposed infringement decision (PID) and subsequently a supplementary PID issued by the CCCS against the client for its alleged participation in agreements to fix prices and to not compete for customers with other distributors of fresh chicken products.

Advised Essilor and Luxottica as Singapore joint-counsel in relation to their worldwide merger valued at $51 billion and its notification to the CCCS.

Dispute Resolution
Represented the Keppel Group as leading counsel in a matter involving allegations of corruption made by a former independent business executive regarding key individuals in the company. This was the first time that the Singapore authorities had effectively implemented a deferred prosecution agreement scheme with a corporate entity, and the case triggered a landmark review of Singapore statutory regime.

Intellectual Property
Acted for FIFA in its brand protection campaign for the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia. Following the detection of the unauthorised use of its trademarks and the unauthorised association with the World Cup tournament by a company with a presence in Singapore, the firm commenced enforcement action against the Singapore company which ultimately resulted in the company removing all references to FIFA from its web pages.

Insurance
Advised Insurance Australia Group in issuing a catastrophe bond within their $6.3 billion property insurance program. This was the first insurance-linked security (ILS) transaction in Singapore.

Acted for World Bank in advising on the legal structure for the South East Asia Disaster Risk Insurance Facility. The regional facility is the first of its kind in Asia to provide climate and disaster risk financing and insurance solutions to participating member states of Southeast Asia to strengthen financial resilience against climate and disaster risks in the region.

Labour & Employment
Acted for Aptiv in independently reviewing and validating the results of an internal investigation against an employee for attempting to rig the tender process for the provision of services valued at $9 million.

Represented Lloyd’s Register against a long serving senior executive’s allegations of wrongful termination, breach of employment contract, and demands for damages and compensation.

Regulatory
Acting for the Singapore Telecommunications in providing multi-jurisdictional legal and regulatory analysis on the company’s proposed cross-border payments system that will allow users of an e-wallet provider in their home country to make payments to merchants acquired by e-wallet providers in foreign countries by way of a central transaction switching and financial clearinghouse entity in Singapore.

Restructuring and Insolvency
Advising the joint and several judicial managers of Swiber Holdings and Swiber Offshore Construction in relation to issues arising from the judicial management of the two companies in one of the most significant and high-profile judicial management cases in recent years, valued at $1.2 billion and involving multiple cross-border and regulatory issues.

Tax
Advised M17 Entertainment in connection to the company’s filing for a $115 million IPO on the NYSE and also prepared and reviewed the taxation portions of the filings.

Client Feedback:

“Awesome team! Has a deep understanding of the hedge fund industry and pragmatic.”– Capital markets