Winston has extensive experience in a wide variety of shipping related work ranging from marine insurance, ship sale and purchase, ship finance, casualty work, ship construction and repair, structured finance, commodities and charterparty disputes to shipping fraud cases. He was fortunate to have acted for Changi Airport Group in the first and only proceedings in the Singapore Courts for the break-up and disposal of a cargo-liner operated by Jett8, on the basis of a possessory lien.

Winston is the preferred counsel for banks and financial institutions, both local and international, when it comes to ‘work-outs’ (insolvency, re-structuring and mortgage enforcement) – having led the development of judicial direct sales of ships, both singly and in a fleet, arrested in Singapore to specific buyers instead of via the traditional Sheriff’s public auctions. With aviation law having its roots in maritime law,

Winston acted in the worldwide enforcement by HSH Nordbank AG against the Karahasan fleet of vessels, which was hotly contested and thus followed closely by the international shipping industry. The matter led to a change in Turkish law on arrests of Turkish-flagged vessels by foreign Courts.

In the context of the United Nations Sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran, Winston acted for a syndicate of banks (with Credit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank acting as the security agent) in the enforcement of mortgages against and arrests of 3 vessels belonging to the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (“IRISL”). The Singapore Admiralty Court being the first in the world to effect arrests of IRISL vessels, the matter attracted worldwide attention and was closely followed by the Office of Foreign Assets Control, US, and the Attorney-General’s Chambers of Singapore.

More recently, the crash of oil prices through 2014 and 2015, and the consequent global slow-down in the oil & gas and shipping industries, led to a number of casualties in the Offshore and Marine industry where even listed companies were not spared. The Singapore Courts appointed judicial managers to attempt to rehabilitate 2 such listed entities and Winston is involved in both where issues relating to vessels and their operation are concerned. Winston is advising the joint and several judicial managers of Swiber Holdings Limited (“SHL”) and Swiber Offshore Construction Pte Ltd (“SOC”) in the judicial management of the two companies, which operated more than 50 specialist vessels. This is one of the most significant and high profile judicial management casesin recent years. SHL was one of the most prominent companies in the Offshore and Marine industry listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange, with 40 subsidiaries and related entities spanning multiple jurisdictions, including Singapore, India, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Malaysia, Indonesia, Netherlands, Belgium, Mauritius, and the British Virgin Islands (collectively, the “Swiber Group”). The Swiber Group was a leading global Engineering, Procurement, Installation and Construction (“EPIC”) services provider offering a full spectrum of offshore marine oil and gas services. In particular, Swiber was named as one of “Asia’s 200 Best Under A Billion” by Forbes in 2008, and its total book asset value exceeded US$2 billion in 2015.

Winston acted for the judicial managers of Swissco Holdings Ltd in relation to issues arising from the judicial management of the Swissco group. The judicial managers were formerly the Independent Financial Advisors to Swissco, when Swissco sought to re-structure itself by proposing a scheme of arrangement with its creditors. The Swissco Group operated more than 100 vessels and its total liabilities were in excess of US$300 million.

As various companies in both the Swiber and Swissco groups were engaged in litigation and arbitration, not only was a review of all such matters undertaken with a view to achieving the rehabilitation of these companies, Winston had to also assist the judicial managers to achieve a better realisation of the groups’ assets, many of which were subject to mortgages in favour of financial institutions, both Singapore and offshore.

At the turn of 2020, the palm oil industry was rocked by the sudden declaration of insolvency and application by Agritrade International Pte Ltd for Court protection and re-structuring of its US$1.5 billion debt, more than a billion of which was owed to some thirty financial institutions. When these financial institutions discovered that there duplicated bills of lading were issued to obtain multiple financing from different institutions for a single underlying or non-existent cargo, the institutions objected and applied to place Agritrade under judicial management instead, to investigate and maximise recovery. Winston advises one of the financial institutions and lately also the Judicial Manager that the Court appointed.