Shook Lin & Bok has maintained a steady capability with some of the most experienced litigators in the field, particularly in the intellectual property and construction realms. It offers disputes coverage across a wide swathe of areas, including arbitration, banking and finance, competition, insurance, labour and employment, real estate and shipping.
Key contacts within the disputes group are firm managing partner and head of IP, Michael Soo, and arbitration, construction and insurance head Ko Luen Lam. Other core leaders of the 15 partner-strong team include co-head of the dispute resolution department and head of labour and industrial disputes Romesh Abraham and Sin Min Yoong, co-head of the dispute resolution department.
In commercial and transactions, the firm is acting for OCBC Bank in a suit against 37 defendants for fraud, conspiracy, negligence and breach of fiduciary and contractual duties. The bank instituted action against its employees, valuers and lawyers, and also against the vendors and purchasers of lands, where such purchases were funded by the bank from loan facilities totalling $15.2million. The outcome of this case would affect the banking industry, in that lenders will need to carefully consider whether or not to commence recovery action against their defaulting customers concurrently with an action for conspiracy to defraud.
Another commercial and transactions highlight saw the firm acting for a financial institution in a suit against its borrower and three guarantors to recover the outstanding sum under a term loan. The loan had been restructured twice before from secured redeemable convertible loan stocks which were issued by the borrower to the previous banking entity, whose assets, rights and remedies had been vested in the plaintiff bank via a court order.
In an ongoing patent infringement case, the firm’s IP litigators are counsel to Sims Capital in an action for the expungement of its registered mark which was instituted by Inner Mongolia Mengniu Dairy (Group) Company. This case is significant as it is perhaps the first case which involved a determination of well-known mark provisions under the Trademarks Act 2019. An appeal against the decision of the High Court is currently pending before the Court of Appeal. A decision by the Court of Appeal will likely become a landmark decision and the first decision on the new issues raised.
The IP team also represented Mylan Ireland, a global generic and specialty pharmaceuticals company, in seeking to invalidate a Malaysian patent in respect of an invention entitled ‘Drug delivery device and method of manufacturing a drug delivery device’ in the name of Sanofi-Aventis Deutschland. This matter is significant and had a significant impact on Mylan Ireland’s worldwide distribution of its Semglee product.
DJ Auto Manufacturing, Fanuc, Mewah Dairies, United Overseas Bank and Technology Financing Agencies were some of the firm’s disputes clients last year.
Ko Luen Lam
“Ko Luen is very client-oriented and provides frank and innovate approaches and solutions.”
