Josephine Chee is a Partner in the firm’s Commercial Litigation, Fraud, Asset Recovery & Investigations and White Collar Crime Practices.
Josephine has been involved in a broad range of disputes and advisory work that straddles both commercial and criminal litigation during her time with the firm since graduation. Her practice focuses on white collar financial crimes, investigations work and regulatory offences.
She regularly advises and acts for both individuals and corporations in complex criminal matters involving securities fraud such as market manipulation and insider trading, major financial and compliance offences and corporate breaches under the Companies Act. Her portfolio also encompasses advising financial institutions and corporations on enforcement proceedings initiated by regulatory bodies including the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the Singapore Exchange and the Ministry of Manpower.
Additionally, Josephine has assisted in internal investigations for multi-jurisdictional companies in respect of corporate and compliance breaches and advising on reporting obligations and anti-money laundering matters.
In recent times, she has been involved in several landmark decisions that have shaped Singapore’s legal landscape. These include offences involving proceeds of crime under the Corruption, Drug Trafficking & Other Serious Crimes Act, offences under the Casino Control Act, and market manipulation offences under the Securities and Futures Act.
Josephine has experience at all levels of the Singapore courts for both criminal and commercial matters. She has succeeded as lead counsel before the Court of Appeal arising out of a decision rendered by the Singapore International Commercial Court (“SICC”) and led criminal trials. She has also been involved in a wide range of commercial disputes relating to securities litigation, shareholders’ disputes, hotel management disputes and employment-related matters.
Josephine has been recoginsed as a Next Generation Partner for White Collar Crime by The Legal 500 Asia-Pacific (2024). Clients lauded that she “has the capacity to grasp complex transactions and evaluate these in light of the law”, “is good at drawing a line between a crime and commercial dispute” and “very capable and quick to react”.
She is also identified as one of Asia’s Super 50 Disputes Lawyers by Asian Legal Business (ALB) (2022).
Josephine graduated from the Singapore Management University, which she represented in the Willem C. Vis (East) International Commercial Arbitration Moot 2011 and the Monroe E. Price Moot 2012. She was placed on the Dean’s List in 2012. She is also a tutor of modules for the SILE Part B Examination course, including Civil Procedure.
EXPERIENCE
Commercial & Criminal Disputes
- Assisted in a complex suit representing a BVI company before the SICC in a $150 million claim for the wrongful disposal of shares used as collateral. This case involved novel loan agreements and issues on share disposals and its impact on the market share price (Yuanta Asset Management International Ltd and anor v Telemedia Pacific Group Ltd and anor appeal [2018] 2 SLR 21).
- Acted in a claim for repayment of monies arising from a contractual agreement involving the sourcing of LNG between a Macau state-owned enterprise and the Indonesian gas authority (Tong Seak Kan and anor v Jaya Sudhir a/l Jayaram [2019] SGHC 190).
- Acted for the applicant in a criminal reference before the Court of Appeal for offences under the Corruption, Drug Trafficking & Other Serious Crimes Act (Cap.65A) (“CDSA”), which resulted in clarification of the law under the CDSA. This resulted in overturning the lower court’s decision leading to the acquittal of the applicant’s CDSA charges (Yap Chen Hsiang Osborn v PP [2019] SGCA 40).
- Successfully acted in an appeal before the High Court in a landmark decision for casino cheating offences under the Casino Control Act (Cap 33A, 2007 Rev Ed), where a sentencing framework for offences of cheating at play in casinos was laid out (Logachev Valdislav v PP [2018] 4 SLR 609).
- Successfully acted for an individual in a criminal trial for 58 charges under s477A of the Penal Code (Cap. 224) for falsification of accounts (PP v Tan Yong Kwang [2018] SGDC 233) and successfully defended the prosecution’s appeal against conviction.
Investigations, Regulatory & Other Advisory Work
- Advising corporations on internal fraud investigations, crisis management work and making representations to and/or responding to regulators.
- Advising on regulatory and compliance matters in relation to anti-money laundering, anti-corruption regulations and applicable banking laws.
- Acted for an interested party in respect of English civil court proceedings in which fraudulent Libor fixing was alleged.
MEMBERSHIPS/ DIRECTORSHIPS
- Member, Practice Advisory Panels of the School of Law, Singapore Management University
PUBLICATIONS
- Contributing author (co-authored with Harish Kumar, Jonathan Toh and Jason Lim), International Labour and Employment Laws, 5th Ed., Singapore Chapter 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018 Supplements, American Bar Association (2018)
