I first met my fellow senior partner Kenny Poon in Malaysia in 1991. He was a fresh graduate and I was a partner from a Singapore law firm, both of us undergoing pupillage training for admission as Malaysian lawyers in a top law firm in Kuala Lumpur.
By 1994, I drafted him into Singapore’s then largest law firm to join Singapore’s first cross border legal practice team. He brought our fellow partner James Wong along and we worked on some of the best and most exciting cross border deals in Malaysia and Singapore in those early years of Singapore’s first foreign investment drive overseas (our then Singapore law firm worked on the Singapore Suzhou Industrial Park and had an office in pre 1997 Hong Kong).
From a small startup law firm in Malaysia, we became IPO kings (having developed and trained Malaysian investment bankers on a due diligence system for IPOs in Malaysia).
After the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis struck, we started JLPW in 1999, working on some of the biggest insolvencies and corporate rescues in the country.
JLPW has grown over the last 25 years and it is most gratifying to see my fellow senior partners reaching the top of the Malaysian legal profession as Malaysia Top 100 Lawyers.
At JLPW, we are an internationally recognised law firm in Malaysia, with extensive transactional and dispute resolution experience in areas of strategic investments, joint ventures, M&A, takeovers and takeover defence, corporate governance, corporate restructuring, banking and finance (both conventional and Islamic finance), as well as capital markets.
JEFF LEONG,
Senior Partner
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Address :
B-11-8, Level11, Megan Avenue II, Jalan Yap Kwan Seng, 50450 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
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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