Morgan Lewis Stamford
– a Singapore law corporation affiliated with Morgan Lewis & Bockius
– is highly regarded for commercial litigation and arbitration, and this year it moves up one rank in several key tables such as insolvency, white-collar crime and construction. Last year, the firm welcomed two new directors to bolster its commercial and civil litigation and tax controversy practices. The firm’s mainstay is commercial disputes and it has sizeable insurance, construction and shipping practices. The firm is also highly active in international arbitration with significant experience handling arbitrations before major tribunals including SIAC, HKIAC, LCIA and the UN Commission on International Trade Law. It has seen its contentious private client work portfolio grow in the past 12 months. The team maintains a solid track record of securing landmark victories and instructing on first-of-its-kind matters. As the city-state’s only fully integrated law firm, Morgan Lewis & Bockius has a litigation team in Singapore that can represent in the domestic courts. The past year has been a banner one for the team, with multiple wins and instructions in some of the market’s most high-profile insolvencies and shipping cases.
Daniel Chia, Wendy Tan and Pardeep Khosa are key names in the team focusing on commercial disputes. Tan is also a noted practitioner for shipping matters. Khosa joined last year from Davinder Singh Chambers, while tax specialist Lau Kai Lee was hired from the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore to bolster its tax practice.
In a bet-the-company fight, Chia and his team are acting for the directors of Verrency Singapore and Verrency Group Holdings, a public company in the e-commerce and e-payments space, defending the directors in minority oppression actions commenced in Singapore by minority shareholders of the Verrency Group.
The firm continues to act for PetroChina International, China’s largest oil and gas producer, on issues arising out of the insolvency of Hin Leong Trading, one of Asia’s largest fuel traders and bunker suppliers, and its shipping arm, Ocean Tankers. The firm remains active for Darco Water Technologies in resisting derivative proceedings brought by its minority shareholders. The minority shareholders had sought to compel Darco to bring derivative proceedings against its majority shareholder in respect of water and waste concession deals in China and Indonesia, alleging that the majority shareholder had breached his fiduciary duties. Another case highlight saw the firm act as Shanghai Shipyard’s counsel in connection with a dispute over four rig building contracts with a cumulative value of more than $500 million.
Tan and her team secured a win for its client, a prominent Malaysian businessman, in his long and hard-fought claim in an international arbitration against an Asia-based private investment firm. The high-stakes cross-border matter traversed multi-jurisdictional laws and considerations. The former managing director of Kyen Resources has also turned to the firm for his defence in a claim brought by Hyundai Corporation Singapore in the Singapore High Court alleging fraudulent misrepresentation and conspiracy against various defendants.
In a novel case, the team was instructed by Gracious Land in proceedings against property developer Oxley Gem. Gracious Land pursued arbitration proceedings, but subsequently Oxley Gem applied to the court to remove the arbitrator on grounds of bias. It is very rare for an application to be made to remove an arbitrator for bias before any decision has been awarded. The case raises several novel and unique points on whether certain interlocutors’ rulings were ‘pre-judgments’ such that the arbitrator has prejudged the matter.
In a high-profile and complex corruption matter, Khosa represented the directors of a freight forwarding company who became involved in a conspiracy to pay bribes after the company was unable to fulfil its contractual obligations. Another highlight has the team acting for an individual who is alleged to have become involved in a conspiracy to pay bribes to an officer of the Wildlife Reserves Singapore (WRS) for advancing the business interests of various companies with the WRS.
In the past few years, Morgan Lewis & Bockius has made a substantial pivot towards Asia; its combination with Stamford Law Corporation in 2015 has given Singapore its Asian office with the most substantial disputes capability.
