Private Clients, Wealth & Trusts

The Firm’s Private Client practice has experience acting for, and working with other firms to represent, high net-worth and prominent individuals over a broad range of civil and matrimonial disputes.

Dispute resolution becomes deeply personal when an individual is involved in his or her own name. Often, our private clients have concerns beyond success in litigation or arbitration: many value discretion, expediency, cost efficiency and the minimisation of any impact on their personal lives. We are acutely aware that every client has a different set of outcomes to be achieved. Our lawyers are well equipped to work towards those outcomes in consultation with our clients, within the legal frameworks that apply.

Beyond the courtroom, we have deep experience in alternative dispute resolution settings. We have represented clients in both domestic and international mediation and arbitration, and our Directors are empanelled as mediators and arbitrators across a broad range of institutions. We are acutely aware of the benefits that dispute resolution via these alternative avenues can offer, bearing in mind the outcomes our clients seek to achieve.

Notable matters include:

• Acting for a high net-worth individual from the People’s Republic of China in proceedings to recover assets held on trust for him by a former romantic partner (Wei Ho-Hung v Lyu Jun [2021] SGHC 268; [2022] SGHC(A) 30).
• Acting against the founder of a group of companies in civil proceedings to prove that he was the majority beneficial owner of those companies, as a precursor to those companies being deemed matrimonial assets for division with his former spouse (Lim Lai Soon v Tan Hong Sin and others [2022] SGHC 289).
• Acting for an investor in an appeal against a leading international bank concerning the bank’s right to impose a margin call at short notice in light of certain representations made to the investor by other officers of the same bank.
• Acting for a high net-worth individual in an appeal concerning the rescission of a sale and purchase agreement via a telephone call in a situation where the agreement contained a “no oral modification” clause: [2021] 2 SLR 153.
• Representing a tech investor in negotiating his exit from a venture capital fund after an attempt by his co-investors to oust him, in a matter that was eventually settled at mediation.