On Friday, our JLPW Admiralty and Maritime Law Group team Fatin, Hong Ze and Sundram (supervised by JLPW litigation partner Ganesh Nathan and Singapore counsel Goh Wing Sun) successfully executed on behalf of our clients the arrest of a ship in Kuantan Port, Malaysia.
Our Admiralty and Maritime Law team spent days tracking the vessel, and waited overnight in Kuantan to arrest the vessel (initially due to anchor at midnight, but subsequently delayed to early morning).
Watching our team clamber up the rope ladder to board the ship brought back memories of my youthful years as a shipping lawyer in Singapore in the 1980s and early 1990s, arresting all manner of ships from wooden fishing boats and barges to container ships and giant Econ ships (dual use container ships/aircraft carriers) in the port of Singapore.
From a humble start as a shipping lawyer in Singapore handling marine cargo claims for insurers, charter party disputes (including arbitrations) for charterers and ship owners, investigating maritime disasters and ship sinkings and acting for P&I Clubs in Malaysia and Singapore, I progressed on to handle one of the largest shipping group corporate restructurings in the world post US Oil Pollution Act 1990 (which held ultimate owners liable for Exxon Valdez type of ship related environmental disasters) in Hong Kong in the mid-1990s.
I have since acted in shipping and logistics industry IPOs, fundraisings, M&As and takeovers, ship financing and leasing transactions, and other complex matters that require a combination of corporate, M&A and maritime law expertise /experience and knowledge of the shipping and logistics industry.
Through the years, JLPW has provided all types of legal services and served clients in the shipping and logistics industries, but I never forgot ship arrests and the rush of adrenaline holding on to swaying rope ladders, the smell of the sea, the chug and smoke of tugboats and the rise and fall of ship bow and stern in those early years as an admiralty and maritime lawyer.
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I am the senior partner of Messrs Jeff Leong, Poon & Wong, Malaysia.
I am also serving with the Law Association For Asia And The Pacific (LAWASIA), the peak body for national bar associations and law societies in more than 40 jurisdictions in the Asia Pacific region as Chair of the Corporate, Securities & Investment Law and Co Chair of the Belt And Road Initiative Standing Committees.
I lead a Special Projects team, structure and run complex M&A deals, resolve critical problems faced by clients such as crisis management, regulatory investigations, shareholder fights and board tussles and advise founders, business owners and senior management on business transactions.
With numerous IPOs and M&A deals over 30 years, I am often consulted by clients in Shipping and Logistics, Technology and Digital Economy, Oil & Gas and other heavily regulated industries on complex, urgent and critical matters.
I have been included on Asia Business Law Journal’s A List of Malaysia’s Top 100 Lawyers and Legal 500’s Hall of Fame for Corporate and M&A for Malaysia.
I am an accredited Mediator of the Malaysian Mediation Centre, the International Commercial Mediation Centre For the Belt And Road Initiative, Benchmark Chambers International & Benchmark International Mediation Centre, Shenzhen Qianhai International Commercial Mediation Centre, CCPIT/CCOIC Hangzhou Mediation Centre and Hainan International Arbitration Court.
I founded JLPW in 1999 during the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis with 2 other founders. We were deep into corporate rescues and mergers of banks, insurance companies and stockbrokers to resuscitate the bleeding Malaysian economy, working on some of the major corporate rescues of the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis.
Affiliations with Deacons Graham & James 2001- 2012 and Dacheng (now Dentons China) 2012-2016 quickly followed. In 2012, we founded JLPW CROSSBORDER ASIA, a regional law firm network.
In JLPW, we developed the current due diligence system adopted and used by industry participants in capital markets transactions in 1999. I assisted the review of the 2020 Due Diligence Guide for Malaysia with investment bankers, accountants, capital market lawyers and other industry participants.
I currently lead our Japan Services Group, assisting Japanese companies venturing into Malaysia and South East Asia with market entry strategies, M&As and post merger integration advisory together with our Japanese speaking team.
I am also leading our China Services Group and regional JLPW Belt and Road Services Group assisting Chinese companies investing and undertaking Belt and Road projects in Malaysia and other ASEAN countries.
As leader, strategist, chief talent scout, builder and problem solver, I have initiated and developed various practice groups in JLPW and am now leading our Legal Tech initiatives to better support our clients in the new Digital Economy.
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