Linklaters

Niranjan Arasaratnam

Niranjan advises technology, media and telecommunications (TMT) clients on a range of corporate, commercial and regulatory matters, including M&A and joint ventures across the Asia-Pacific region. He also advises non-technology clients as they embrace digitisation and move into adjacent sectors. He is co-head of the firm’s global TMT sector.Formerly, Niranjan was a partner at Allens, with whom Linklaters has a close association, for 16 years. At various times, he has been based in Australia, Hong Kong, Shanghai and currently Singapore, developing longstanding relationships with TMT clients in all of these centres.Niranjan has been recognised as a leading lawyer by Chambers for Corporate/M&A and TMT work; and ’Leading Individual’ by Legal 500 Asia-Pacific for Corporate/M&A work.

Andrew Battisson

Robert Elliot

Rob is a corporate partner in the Singapore office, focusing on transactions involving private capital clients. Rob worked in the Linklaters London and Shanghai offices before moving to Singapore in 2016 to lead the Southeast Asia private equity M&A practice, focusing on transactions involving private equity, infrastructure and sovereign wealth funds, including on the establishment and operation of investment platforms across asset classes such as energy, infrastructure and real estate. Rob has extensive experience acting for clients in Europe and Asia on cross-border transactions, including private mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, growth capital investments and corporate reorganisations. His experience acting for financial sponsors on the full range of investment stages, including venture capital investments and control buy-outs, means he provides solutions across a company’s growth cycle.He has acted on transactions in sectors including technology, infrastructure, renewables, data centres, education, real estate and services.During his time in London, Rob spent time on secondment to HgCapital (now Hg), a leading European-headquartered private equity house.

Alun Evans

Alun has over 20 years of experience advising on M&A and joint ventures across the Asia Pacific region. He has a proven track record advising clients on a range of investments and joint ventures, with a focus on complex multijurisdictional transactions and first time market entry. Alun has deep sectoral experience in infrastructure (including digital infrastructure) and energy transition matters. He has also got extensive deal experience in the healthcare, consumer and financial services sectors.Alun represents a broad range of clients, from global private capital to more regional and local players. He focuses on tuning into a clients culture and specific needs to get the job done.

Sophie Mathur

Sophie has over 25 years of experience in cross-border corporate transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, private equity transactions, takeovers and joint ventures across Southeast Asia. Sophie has specialist expertise in the financial services, energy and technology sectors and is well-known for her pivotal role in deals with a strong regional nexus.Sophie began her career in London, where she trained and worked for five years. In 2010, Sophie spent three months in Jakarta on a secondment to PT Astra International, Indonesia’s largest conglomerate, assisting on the legal aspects of many of the group’s businesses.Over the course of her career, Sophie has consistently worked on some of the largest and most complicated transactions in the region. Sophie is recognised for her Corporate/M&A expertise, and is ranked as a Band 1 lawyer by Chambers Asia-Pacific since 2020 and inducted into the ’Hall of Fame’ by Legal 500 Asia-Pacific since 2022. The leading legal directories note that she is “outstanding and on top of things”, “technically gifted and able to navigate different legal cultures”, concluding that she is "the gold standard for M&A in the region". Sophie has been ranked among the Top 20 most innovative lawyers from the past two decades at the Financial Times Innovative Lawyer Global Summit 2025 and also awarded Lawyer of the Year (Private Practice) at the Legal 500 Southeast Asia 2020/21 Awards.

Chaiyee Oh

Laure de Panafieu

Laure heads the firm’s Employment & Incentives Practice in Asia. She has significant knowledge of advisory, transactional and contentious employment law, with in-depth knowledge of restraint of trade issues, senior executive appointments and terminations, employee transfers, incentive arrangements, settlement agreements, redundancies, outsourcings and insolvencies.Laure has extensive experience in advising on employment and incentives-related issues arising out of corporate transactions, including cross-border M&A transactions and restructurings in Singapore and the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region generally, with a particular focus on businesses in the financial services sector.Laure also advises large multinational institutions on data privacy related matters (data privacy compliance programmes, complaints, investigations and breach handling) and on the implications of cyber theft (including civil/criminal liabilities, remedial steps and strategy).Laure was based in the firm’s London office for 11 years before relocating to the firm’s Singapore office in 2014. Earlier in her career, Laure spent two years as sole in-house legal counsel for Lazard Asia, in Singapore.Laure is widely lauded for her market-leading expertise, and was awarded Lawyer of the Year for Labour and Employment at the Legal 500 Southeast Asia Awards 2023. She is ranked Band 1 by Chambers APAC since 2019, and was inducted into the Legal 500 APAC Hall of Fame since 2024, following seven consecutive years of recognition as a Leading Individual. Laure is also recognised in The International Employment Lawyer Elite 2025, the inaugural guide to the world's best employment and labour law team.

Jia-Yi Tay