Rajah & Tann law firm news

A new regulatory-focused practice group has been inaugurated by Singapore Big Four Firm Rajah & Tann – the first such group dedicated to compliance to be launched in Singapore.

Norton rose has created five new partners in the Asia-Pacific – with two promoted in Canberra, one in Shanghai, one in Singapore and one in Sydney.

Following an exhaustive research process involving a record number of submissions from law firms and in-house legal departments this year, ALB is proud to announce the finalists for the ALB SE Asia Law Awards 2011, the most important event on SE Asia's legal calendar.

Workplace initiatives encouraging staff fitness have been prevalent in Western firms for some time. But as the 2011 ALB Employer of Choice survey reveals, law firms operating in Asia see exercise as an increasingly important plank in their work/life balance strategies.

Clyde & Co has poached Ashurst’s head of aviation for Asia, Middle East and Africa Paul Jebely, to launch the Asian arm of the firm’s global aviation finance practice.

Rajah & Tann has kicked off 2011 in growth mode by strengthening its partner count with added capabilities in construction & projects, capital markets, business finance & insolvency and litigation.

Clyde & Co’s construction practice seems to be growing as fast as some of the new skyscrapers appearing on city skylines around the region and the firm’s latest move – hiring ex-Minter Ellison partner Ian Cocking for its Hong Kong office – is in preparation for the launch of a China construction practice, due Jan 2011.

The International Cricket Council (ICC), the governing body for international cricket, has selected two Bangalore-based boutique firms to provide legal advice to the 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup in India. Copyright Integrity International (CII) and the law offices of Nandan Kamath (NK) will both work closely with the ICC’s in-house legal team on rights protection and general commercial matters.

Regional firm DFDL Mekong has told ALB that it is expecting to convert its representative office license in Singapore to a fully-fledge foreign law practice (FLP) license this month, pending approval from the Ministry of Law. It plans to launch its Singapore office by early January 2011.

A pioneer of SIAC’s initiatives in India, Ganesh Chandru, has left Singapore Big Four firm Rajah & Tann to join Steven Lim – an arbitration specialist who recently left Baker Botts to join Clyde’s international arbitration team in Singapore.

The strong currency, an increasing amount of work coming in from countries around the region, and the growing international reputation of Singapore law firms is luring foreign lawyers away from top and mid-tier international firms and has created a steady stream of Singaporean lawyers practicing overseas going home to work for local firms.

According to a number of Singapore-based foreign and domestic law firms, the inflow of capital markets, M&A, energy, infrastructure and arbitration work from Indonesia, India and Vietnam to Singapore has boomed in the past year.

Nagashima, Ohno & Tsunematsu (NO&T), Mori Hamada & Matsumoto (MHM), Nishimura & Asahi (N&A) and Anderson Mori & Tomotsune (AM&T) have all indicated expansions and secondments into Asia as Japanese businesses shift from domestic markets and go regional.

Rajah & Tann, Stamford Law, King & Wood and Clifford Chance have acted on the first proposed takeover of a listed business trust in Singapore – a US$225m joint venture between Japan’s Mitsui & Co and Singapore Hyflux to develop a substantial water treatment business in Mainland China.

Maples and Calder, Richards Butler in association with Reed Smith, Reed Smith and King & Wood have all won mandates to advise on the Hong Kong IPO of Mongolian miner Winsway.

Asia will undergo infrastructure and arbitration booms in the next ten years and the expanding market has room to accommodate more foreign law practices.

White & Case and Baker & McKenzie have advised BTA Bank JSC – the largest in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) region – on one of the world’s largest bank debt restructures to date.

New managing partner of Rajah & Tann, Lee Eng Beng, will soon take the helm of the Singapore firm and intends to power the firm into a regional push – with the aim of growing the proportion of turnover derived overseas to 50% in five years.

Norton Rose, Hogan Lovells, WongPartnership and Ashurst have all landed leading roles on the world’s largest sport facilities infrastructure public-private partnership (PPP) to date.

Leading international dispute resolution centre – the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) – has announced senior counsel Cavinder Bull will be the new deputy chairman of the SIAC board of directors, effective from 1 October 2010.