Zi Wei is a partner in the firm’s Restructuring & Insolvency Practice Group.

Zi Wei’s areas of practice include both domestic and cross-border commercial litigation and arbitration, with an emphasis on insolvency litigation and shareholders’ disputes. Zi Wei has significant experience in the restructuring of debts of distressed companies, having advised and acted in various matters for debtor companies, insolvency practitioners, banks and financial institutions.

Zi Wei also has a keen interest in China-related disputes work, and has acted for and advised clients on dispute matters involving joint ventures and projects in Mainland China. In 2019, he was seconded to a disputes team in the Shanghai office of one of the leading Red Circle law firms in China.

He graduated with First Class Honours from King’s College London in 2013 and was called to the Singapore Bar in 2015.

Notable Cases & Transactions:

Restructuring & Insolvency 

• Advising and acting for the receivers and managers of the Sycamore Tree and Laurel Tree, two condominium developments which ran into financial difficulties prior to completion. Successfully proposed and obtained the Singapore High Court’s sanction of a pre-pack scheme of arrangement.
• Advising and acting for the judicial managers and liquidators of Hin Leong Trading (Pte.) Ltd.
• Representing the liquidator of a Singapore company in the co-working space business in suing its directors for breach of directors’ duties.
• Advising and acting for the receivers and managers of Big Box Pte Ltd on various matters, including the sale of the company’s flagship property.
• Part of the team that successfully represented the purchasers of the business of HTL International Holdings Pte Ltd (under judicial management) in resisting an application before the Singapore Court of Appeal to set aside the transaction. In this novel decision, the Singapore Court set out the applicable principles in determining the threshold of unfair prejudice required before it would intervene in a decision made by the judicial managers.
• Advised and acted for various banks and financial institutions on both contentious and non-contentious insolvency and restructuring matters. Notable cases include Pacific International Lines (Pte) Ltd, TT International Limited, Tuaspring Pte Ltd, Agritrade International (Pte) Ltd, Miclyn Express Offshore, Pars Ram Brothers Pte Ltd, and Aavanti Industries Pte Ltd.

Commercial Litigation, Disputes and Arbitration

• Successfully represented a company in the hostel and serviced residences business in a multi-million dollar claim before the Singapore Court of Appeal involving claims against its former directors. This landmark decision clarified the law on the applicable standard for causation in the context of equitable compensation for breach of fiduciary duties.
• Represented a financial institution in an arbitration in relation to a multi-million dollar dispute on factoring arrangements that involved a novel point on the law of assignment.
• Representing the former directors of a furniture and upholstery company in a cross-border dispute, involving claims of misrepresentation and breach of duties brought by the company’s China-based shareholders.
• Represented a director and shareholder of a Singapore country club in a dispute involving claims of breach of fiduciary duties, breach of trust, and conspiracy.
• Advising various Singapore-listed companies on responding to SGX queries in relation to alleged breaches of the Catalist Rules.
• Advising and acting for companies in relation to employment disputes.

Reported Judgments

• BW Umuroa Pte Ltd v Tamarind Resources Pte Ltd [2020] 4 SLR 1294
• Yihua Lifestyle Technology Co, Ltd and Anor v HTL International Holdings Pte Ltd and Ors [2021] 2 SLR 1141
• Re HTL International Holdings Pte Ltd [2021] 5 SLR 586
• Winsta Holding Pte Ltd and Anor v Sim Poh Ping and Ors [2018] SGHC 239
• Sim Poh Ping v Winsta Holding Pte Ltd and another and other appeals [2020] 1 SLR 1199
• Pioneer Express Shipping Pte Ltd (in liquidation) (formerly known as Pioneer-Link Express Pte Ltd) v Lee Thiam Heng William (Li Tianxing William) (trading as True Honest Trading) [2016] SGDC 66
• Pars Ram Brothers (Pte) Ltd (in creditors’ voluntary liquidation) v Australian & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd and others [2017] 4 SLR 264