Year in Review 2019
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Year in Review 2019 © 2020 WongPartnership LLP WongPartnership LLP (UEN: T08LL0003B) is a limited liability law partnership registered in Singapore under the Limited Liability Partnerships Act (Chapter 163A). CONTENTS _ 03 05 09 Foreword Firm At the Forefront Highlights of Innovation 11 13 15 New Regional Work Partners Focus Highlights 26 Event Highlights 02 “An extremely competent and professional group. The team has good bench depth, is commercially oriented and backed by strong legal expertise and knowledge.” The Legal 500: Asia Pacific – The Client’s Guide to the Asia Pacific Legal Profession 03 FOREWORD _ Digital innovation has always been a cornerstone of with the ongoing restrictions on social and business WongPartnership’s growth. Our last Year in Review interactions. We will continue to expand on our digital was themed “Riding the Digital Wave” as our Firm innovation plans over the course of the year. accomplished a few firsts on the digital innovation front. Those firsts included harnessing artificial Our Firm has also continued to take on challenging intelligence, acquiring document automation software and high profile work across our practice areas. and subsequently making it available to our clients. On the international arbitration front, we acted for This year, our chosen theme of “Game Changer” is a BVI and Thai entities in three related ICC arbitrations nod to the impact of those firsts, as well as a timely arising out of the sale and purchase of a 97.94% reminder that adaptability to the changing landscape is stake in the holding company of one of South East a must in these uncertain times. Asia’s leading renewable energy companies based in Alvin YEO Thailand, involving claims of over US$1billion in total. Senior Counsel Speaking of firsts, we were delighted to be We also acted for the Republic of India in proceedings Chairman & Senior Partner the first law firm to receive the inaugural award for before the Singapore Courts to set aside an arbitral WongPartnership LLP the “Best Singapore Law Firm” in the FinanceAsia tribunal’s decision on jurisdiction in an investor-state Country Awards 2019. This award recognises arbitration brought against the State by Nissan Motor outstanding law firms which have undertaken ground- of Japan. breaking deals and which have successfully navigated complex regulatory issues across multiple jurisdictions In the area of financial services, we were involved in and practice areas. It is an honour to be the first one of the first green loans under the “Green Loan recipient of this prestigious accolade and we are Principles” where we acted for a club of lenders in a grateful to our clients, business partners and friends S$785 million “green loan” granted to Frasers Property who have been part our success. North Gem Trustee Pte. Ltd. (in its capacity as trustee- manager of North Gem Trust) for the refinancing 2019 continued to be a productive year for the Firm of existing loans relating to the development of despite Singapore experiencing the weakest annual Northpoint City South Wing, part of an integrated growth since the last financial crisis amid trade war mixed development in Northern Singapore. tensions and other economic challenges in the region. Against this backdrop, we are thankful to have seen Our Corporate Partners were also involved in the strong progress across all practice areas last year, as landmark deal of the year: Capitaland’s acquisition of we welcomed new Partners into the leadership fold the Ascendas-Singbridge group of companies where and celebrated some notable wins in our Disputes we acted for CapitaLand Limited (CapitaLand) in its practice as well as market-leading deals and our acquisition of the Ascendas-Singbridge group of Partner industry appointments. companies from Ascendas-Singbridge Pte. Ltd. The deal is valued at S$11 billion and makes CapitaLand On the innovation front, we took another leap forward the largest diversified real estate group in Asia, with last year by undertaking an Operation & Technology assets under management of S$123.4 billion. Roadmap (OTR) that involved the participation of various members of the Firm. The OTR sought to As a difficult 2020 unfolds, I would like to assure our sharpen our technological focus by helping us clarify, clients, business partners and friends that we are here prioritise and operationalise our innovation and for you as you navigate the myriad disruptions brought technology requirements into the future. Aside from about by the Covid-19 pandemic. this, we have also increased our efforts to accelerate the use of document automation internally as well I know that working together, we will continue to stay as for our clients. These document automation resilient and rise above the challenges ahead. efforts have been a boon in helping us respond more quickly than ever to our clients’ needs, particularly 04 “The Firm has a strong and deep bench of lawyers who can always be relied upon to provide insightful and commercial solutions.” Chambers Asia-Pacific – Asia-Pacific’s Leading Lawyers for Business 05 FIRM HIGHLIGHTS _ Inaugural Winner of WongPartnership was named FinanceAsia’s “Best Law Firm in Singapore” in 2019’s FinanceAsia Country Awards. This inaugural award by FinanceAsia recognised outstanding law firms Best Law Firm across Asia which have undertaken deals of a ground-breaking nature as well as successfully navigated complex regulatory issues across in Singapore multiple jurisdictions and practice areas. The FinanceAsia Award is testament to the exceptional nature of our work as well as the Award expertise and professionalism of our lawyers. 06 FIRM HIGHLIGHTS _ Firm at a Glance Ranked in Top Top-tier Practices across Major Global 300 18 Publications 10 0 Firms Lawyers • Chambers Asia-Pacific 2020 • Global Arbitration Review (GAR) 100 • Chambers Global 2020 • Global Investigations Review (GIR) 100 • The Legal 500 2020 • Global Competition Review (GCR) 100 Number of • IFLR1000: Financial & Corporate 2020 • Global Restructuring Review (GRR) 100 4 Senior Counsel Firm Awards Best National Firm Firm of the Year Construction • Best National Firm for Women in Business Law • Most Responsive Firm of the Year Firm of the Year • Country Award for Singapore • Firm of the Year (Singapore) Benchmark Litigation • Best National Firm for Talent Management - Compliance/Regulatory • Best Firm for Diversity by National Firm - Corporate and Mergers and Acquisitions - Intellectual Property Euromoney Asia - Real Estate/Construction Asian-mena Counsel 07 FIRM HIGHLIGHTS _ Top Ranked in League Tables Top Ranked Top Ranked Top Singapore legal Singapore Firm Singapore Firm adviser to Borrowers in South East Asia in the Singapore Dollar in the Asia Pacific Announced Deals Bonds: Legal Adviser (ex-Japan) loans market US$ – Manager Table and in the Singapore Billion S$ loans market 21.0Bloomberg Global 3 Legal Billion Bloomberg Global Legal Advisers League Table 1.70 Advisers League Table Bloomberg Global Legal Advisers Review Award Winning Work Deal of the Year Matter of the Year Impact Deal of the Year • Debt Market Deal of the Year (Premium) • City Harvest Church Breach • Consortium acquisition of Singapore’s - Temasek Financial (IV)’s Establishment of Trust Case Global Logistic Properties of MTN Programme • Noble Group restructuring Benchmark Litigation Asia-Pacific • M&A Deal of the Year (Midsize) • Walmart’s acquisition of Flipkart - ESR-REIT and Viva Industrial’s Merger Asialaw Regional Awards ALB SE Asia Law Awards 08 “Not only do they have strength in depth and industry knowledge, but they are also commercially savvy which ensure our interests are protected.” Chambers Asia-Pacific – Asia-Pacific’s Leading Lawyers for Business 09 AT THE FOREFRONT OF INNOVATION _ WongPartnership believes in making innovation part of our ethos. Over the past year, we have deepened our efforts in innovating our legal services to improve efficiency of workflow processes. We have also made available document automation for our clients. 2019 also saw us further drive our technology vision as we embarked on an Operation & Technology Roadmap to help us clarify, prioritise and operationalise our innovation and technology requirements into the future. Document Automation and Review Solutions We adopted a document automation solution powered by Contract Express, which has enabled us to streamline our document creation processes and improve efficiency. We also launched a service entitled “Document Automation Services Help”, offering document assembly automation to our clients. Artificial Intelligence-based Solutions WPGrow-VIMA We launched WPGrow-VIMA, a document automation As the 1st Singapore law firm to embrace artificial initiative that allows start-ups to generate certain intelligence, we adopted a machine learning-based venture capital investment model agreements online. platform to improve efficiency and allow our WPGrow-VIMA has helped generate interest and lawyers to focus their review on key documents efficiencies within the venture capital ecosystem, with and issues. OUR 2019 over 1,200 visits since its launch in April 2019 up to TECHNOLOGY December 2019. INITIATIVES Innovation Challenge Competition Knowledge Management Solutions As part of our firm-wide innovation drive, we organised Apart from document automation solutions, we also adopted an innovation challenge last year and invited everyone a collaborative knowledge management tool, Clause from the Firm to submit novel ideas to improve work Companion, which enables quick simple