CNPLaw LLP > Firm Profile

Established in 1988, CNPLaw LLP (“CNP”) is a full-service law firm with a talent for cross-border business. With about 90 staff, including approximately 47 lawyers, and a strong network of international contacts, the firm has the capability to deliver legal solutions in Singapore and beyond.

Our practice areas include banking & finance, capital markets, corporate & M&A, company formation, employment, funds, insolvency & restructuring, intellectual property & technology, litigation & arbitration, private clients, global mobility, real estate, and regulatory & compliance.

We focus on business involving Asia, in particular Greater China, India, Indonesia, Indo-China, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, as well as Singapore. Our lawyers are qualified in a number of jurisdictions as well as in Singapore and advise on cross-border transactions under English law.

CNP is consistently recognised as being amongst the top law firms in Singapore by leading legal publications such as Legal 500 Asia Pacific, International Financial Law Review 1000, Benchmark Litigation, Chambers and Partners and AsiaLaw Profiles.

CNP has also been ranked by The Straits Times as one of Singapore’s Best Law Firms.

We make knowing our clients’ businesses our business and pride ourselves in providing innovative, yet practical and valuable advice.

CNPLAW LLP > NEWSLETTER

Introducing CNPupdate, CNPLaw’s bi-monthly newsletter that highlights changes and developments within CNPLaw and legal articles of matters of topical interests. In this issue, we discuss the following matters:

Contents

1. Potential copyright issues with generative AI systems
2. What is the law on execution of deeds under Singapore law and how could the law be changed to allow for electronic deeds?
3. CNPLaw Business Guide series: The solo business owner
4. CNPLaw Technology series: The rise of AI, big data and machine learning
5. New statutory framework for Singapore companies to conduct virtual meetings
6. MAS revisions to Guidelines on Licensing, Registration and Conduct of Business for Fund Management Companies

Potential copyright issues with generative AI systems

In this CNPupdate video, Tan Wee Liang, a Practice Trainee at CNPLaw, discusses potential copyright issues with generative artificial intelligence (“AI”) systems. In particular, the video explains: (1) how the machine learning process and the generated output can potentially infringe copyright in the input information, (2) whether the computational data analysis exception and fair use defence are feasible defences to the aforementioned two instances of potential copyright infringement, and (3) whether copyright can subsist in autonomous AI-generated works. With the current hype surrounding AI systems and their evolving capabilities, this CNPupdate video provides a timely update on some legal considerations when working with such systems.

Please click here to find out more.

What is the law on execution of deeds under Singapore law and how could the law be changed to allow for electronic deeds?

Many Singapore lawyers are conscious of the increasing demands of clients to allow the electronic execution of documents and the difficulties they face in advising on the execution of deeds under Singapore law. This note seeks to put the issues in the particular context of cross-border transactions, since it is in this context that the default reflex of Singapore lawyers that a deed needs to be executed in wet ink and physically delivered (and sealed, except in the case of a Singapore company) comes up against the harsh fact that this approach is fast becoming outmoded in a world that increasingly has done away with these formalities. To take England as an example, any requirements of form or seal in relation to a deed were removed as far back as 1989. The Law Society of England & Wales and the City of London Law Society published guidance on electronic execution of documents, including deeds, on 2 October 2022. Recently Australian banks have got comfortable with the electronic execution of financing documents, including security documents executed as deeds, and lenders in the US execute security documents as indentures using electronic signatures. It is, therefore, useful to understand as a Singapore lawyer a little about the extent of the constraints imposed by Singapore law as it stands and also the extent of the limited changes in the law that will be required to bring Singapore more into line with the digital world that increasingly is the norm outside its borders.

Please click here to find out more.

CNPLaw Business Guide series: The solo business owner

The solo business owner (“SBO“) is a solopreneur, a freelancer, a side hustler – an individual who wishes to start a business on his or her own. This has become a growing trend post the COVID-19 pandemic where gig culture is no longer seen as a last resort to gain work but rather a preferred choice for many who wish to have multiple sources of income, fuelled by the flexibility of remote working in this new digital landscape.

Please click here to find out more.

CNPLaw Technology series: The rise of AI, big data and machine learning

In recent years, the world has witnessed a remarkable surge in the development and deployment of artificial intelligence (“AI“) technologies, big data, and machine learning across various industries. AI leverages on computers and machines to mimic the problem-solving and decision-making capabilities of the human mind. In the healthcare sector, big data has assisted scientists in developing precision medicine in public health and aided in the development of technology enabling genome editing. In the retail sector, consumers source for the cheapest flight tickets through flight scanner applications using big data. Retailers have successfully used big data to personalise advertisements targeting specific groups of consumers who exhibit certain identified behavioural patterns through their online activity. In the finance sector, insurance companies utilize big data on driving history to assess insurance premiums with greater accuracy. Employers leverage on big data to determine the most suitable candidates to hire or fire. Ultimately, proper use of big data will allow for more accurate decision-making, leading to greater opportunities for innovation and efficiency

Please click here to find out more.

New statutory framework for Singapore companies to conduct virtual meetings

The COVID-19 pandemic reshaped the way businesses were conducted in Singapore. Various Safe Management measures were implemented by the authorities to prevent the spread of COVID-19 infections and some of these measures discouraged or prevented the attendance of in-person meetings held by companies. To enable companies in Singapore (“Companies“) to have the option to hold virtual meetings, the COVID-19 (Temporary Measures) (Alternative Arrangements for Meetings) Orders (the “Order“) were introduced in April 2020 as part of the COVID-19 (Temporary Measures) Act 2020. We have since successfully transitioned towards living with COVID-19 and many of the Safe Management measures have been lifted such that physical meetings are no longer discouraged or prevented. Nonetheless, the COVID-19 pandemic has paved the way for Companies to embrace technology and make technological advancements in the way corporate proceedings are carried out. The benefits of being able to conduct meetings virtually are recognized and notwithstanding the cessation of the Order, Companies are able to continue to choose to conduct meetings virtually following the passing of the Companies, Business Trusts and Other Bodies (Miscellaneous Amendments) Act (the “Amendment Act“).

Please click here to find out more.

MAS revisions to Guidelines on Licensing, Registration and Conduct of Business for Fund Management Companies.

This note summarises the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s (“MAS”) revisions in December 2021 as well as March and November 2022 to its Guidelines on Licensing, Registration and Conduct of Business for Fund Management Companies (the “Guidelines”) which apply to Fund Management Companies (“FMCs”). For context, the Guidelines are issued pursuant to section 321 of the Securities and Futures Act 2001 (“SFA”) and explain the minimum licensing criteria and business conduct requirements made under various SFA regulations. The revisions made by MAS primarily concern criteria for the licensing and registration of Licensed FMCs (“LFMCs”) and Registered FMCs (“RFMCs”).

Please click here to find out more.

CNP Press Releases

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Register your interest here.

–>News

CNPLaw Expands Its Global Reach Through A Collaboration Agreement with Andersen Global

Benchmark Litigation recommends Partner, Mr Subramanian Pillai as a Litigation Star for Construction

CNPLaw LLP recommended in Benchmark Litigation Asia Pacific 2023

CNPLaw LLP shortlisted by Asian Legal Business in its 19th South East Asia Law Awards

CNPLaw LLP Capital Markets practice has been recognised in the 2023 edition of Chambers Global Guide

Editor
Bill JAMIESON

Production team
Nicholas FONG
Jacqueline CHEOW
Menes STA ANA

Contributors
Bill JAMIESON
Hazel HO-TSASTSINA
WONG Pei-Ling
Marvin CHUA
Victoria Lynn Chin
Andrew CHAN
Chelsey HO
ONG Hong Yi
Shann LIEW
TAN Pin Hui
TAN Wee Liang

For more information please contact us via contact@cnplaw.com

CNPLAW LLP > PRACTICES

Please click on the bullet points below to find out more about our practices.

• Corporate
  • • Commercial Contracts
    • Company and Branch Formation
    • Corporate Advisory
    • Corporate Governance, Compliance and Regulatory
    • Corporate Restructuring
    • Joint Ventures
    • Mergers and Acquisitions
    • Private Equity

Dispute Resolution

• • • Arbitration
    • Construction
    • General Litigation
    • Insolvency
    • Matrimonial and Family Disputes
    • Professional Liability

Employment

• • • Employment Contracts and Relations
    • Employment Disputes
    • Immigration (Employment)
    • Workforce Restructuring and Termination of Employment

Financial Services

• • • Banking and Finance
    • Blockchain, Cryptocurrency and Initial Coin Offerings
    • Corporate Finance – Capital Markets
    • Investment Funds

Intellectual Property, Media and Technology

• • • Data Protection and Security
    • Franchise Arrangements
    • Intellectual Property
    • Media and Entertainment
    • Technology and E-Commerce

Private Clients, Family Offices and Wealth Management

• • • Charities and Philanthropy
    • Estate Planning
    • Family Offices
    • Global Mobility/Immigration (Private Clients)
    • Mental Capacity Act Advisory
    • Probate
    • Wills and Trusts

Real Estate

• • • Corporate Real Estate
    • Retail Conveyancing

CNPLAW  LLP > PARTNERS 

Lisa Theng, Managing partner

As a managing partner, Lisa sees a need to ensure that our clients see us as their business partner and not a just legal service provider. Our aim is to provide innovative legal solutions for our clients across Asia with a high level of service and support that will help our clients better manage and succeed in their own businesses.
Find out more about Lisa
Email:  lisatheng@cnplaw.com

Pradeep Kumar Singh, Admin partner

Pradeep acts for corporations, whether they are private or listed companies, on all aspects of their business including advice on structuring their operations, the setting up of the business (such as incorporation of companies, registration of branches or representative offices), compliance with all legal and regulatory requirements, licensing requirements, advice and drafting of corporate documentation as well as advice and drafting of documentation on investments, joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions and restructurings.
Find out more about Pradeep
Email:  pksingh@cnplaw.com

Bill Jamieson, Partner

Bill’s practice focuses on corporate financing transactions, investment funds, mergers and acquisitions, private equity and employment law matters. His experience includes ten years in the City of London and over 20 years in Asia. Before joining CNP, Bill was a partner in a well-known international law firm. He is recommended lawyer for Corporate and M&A, Banking and Finance, Investment Funds and Labour and Employment in Legal 500 Asia Pacific 2020. Bill is one of the firm’s contacts for Interlaw, a network of independent full-service corporate law firms ranked by Chambers and Partners in its highest category, “Elite”, amongst all global law firm networks.
Find out more about Bill
Email:  billjamieson@cnplaw.com

Chan Wai Mun, Partner

Wai Mun has adopted a broad-based approach in developing his technical skills. Although he started out as a litigation lawyer, he quickly widened his job scope to take on real estate work. For him, it’s a critical grounding to enhance not only legal skills but also develops a better appreciation of the commercial and private clients issues in legal practice.
Find out more about Wai Mun
Email:  wmchan@cnplaw.com

Chia Shengyou, Edwin, Partner

Edwin is in the firm’s Dispute Resolution team and Family Law practice team. His practice areas encompass a broad range of matters, including civil and commercial litigation, disciplinary proceedings, shareholders disputes, employment matters, and defamation. He also regularly advises clients on wills and probate, lasting power of attorney, application under the Mental Capacity Act and contentious probate.
Find out more about Edwin
Email:  echia@cnplaw.com

Cinda Sim, Partner

Cinda is a pioneer of sorts, having experienced and worked through many “firsts” in Singapore’s real estate history and scene, which are now taken as the norm. One of these was the start of the collective sales trend of private estates. Another “first” was the birth of executive condominiums in Singapore. As with anything new, lawyers then had to understand the new legislation and rules relating to this new piece of real estate and work through the initial lack of clarity and uncertainty when advising potential buyers on the legal obligations and their financiers (i.e. the banks and the CPFB) in their legal documentation. Yet another significant event was the conversion of land in Singapore (which was then largely unregistered) to the Torrens system of land registration, through a very massive and gradual exercise.
Find out more about Cinda
Email:  csim@cnplaw.com

Ge Xiaomeng, Partner

Xiaomeng’s practice is focused on corporate finance, M&A and general corporate advisory. Before joining CNP, she started practice in a leading corporate law firm in Singapore. She is fluent in the Chinese language and has been involved in cross-border transactions in the PRC (including Hong Kong), Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan and Australia.Xiaomeng’s practice is focused on corporate finance, M&A and general corporate advisory. Before joining CNP, she started practice in a leading corporate law firm in Singapore. She is fluent in the Chinese language and has been involved in cross-border transactions in the PRC (including Hong Kong), Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan and Australia.
Find out more about Xiaomeng
Email:  xge@cnplaw.com

Hu Huimin, Partner

Huimin is a Partner with the firm’s Dispute Resolution team and Family Law team. Her areas of practice include civil and commercial litigation. She has been involved in various civil trials and hearings before the different levels of Courts in Singapore. She is also an SMC Accredited Mediator and SMC Certified Family Mediator. Huimin has a specialized focus in private client and family-related matters. She has advised on pre-nuptial and post-nuptial agreements, high net-worth financial settlements arising out of divorce and relationship breakdown, interim financial applications, complex discovery applications and disputes involving children. She has considerable experience in high value divorces and contentious matters involving non-disclosure of assets, cross-jurisdiction assets and multi-million dollars assets. She has also acted for clients in both contentious and non-contentious probate matters, deputyship applications, divorce proceedings, ancillary matters, custody and maintenance issues.
Find out more about Huimin
Email:  hhu@cnplaw.com

Jimmy Yap, Partner

Jimmy’s main areas of practice for non-contentious work are Indonesia related corporate and commercial matters – such as investment into Indonesia, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, and franchising and licensing. In addition, he also focuses on Singapore and Hong Kong IPO-related legal due diligence.Find out more about JimmyEmail:  jyap@cnplaw.com

Ken Chia, Partner

Ken heads the Corporate advisory team in the firm and has an international focus in his corporate and M&A work having graduated from the University of Exeter in the UK and worked in business development positions with various subsidiaries of the Hang Lung Group (SEHK: 10) in Shanghai, the People’s Republic of China and with Informa plc (LSE: INF) in Singapore.
Find out more about Ken
Email:  kchia@cnplaw.com

Kenn Lim, PartnerKenn’s practice covers a wide range of corporate and commercial transactions such as mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, foreign investments and private equity transactions. Fluent in both English and Mandarin, Kenn regularly acts for companies in a spectrum of industries in various domestic and cross-border corporate transactions.
Find out more about Kenn
Email:  klim@cnplaw.com

Quek Li Fei, Partner

In addition to Li Fei’s experience in acting for banks on varied transactions and in general corporate law, he also helps individuals in estate planning, including the legal aspects of wealth management, advising on and setting up trusts and off-shore structures to secure their future and the future of their families.
Find out more about Li Fei
Email:  lfquek@cnplaw.com

Ravindran Ramasamy, Partner

Ravindran has 32 years of legal experience. He is in the firm’s Dispute Resolution team and handles both civil and criminal work. He specialises in corporate advisory and corporate and criminal litigation work. He provides legal advice to directors and CEOs on laws and rules relating to directors’ duties and corporate governance. He has a wealth of experience in advising local and regional companies on investment agreements, joint ventures, and corporate structures. He also advises many companies on fraud and due diligence measure to adopt in investments and overseas business development.
Find out more about Ravindran
Email:  ravi@cnplaw.com

Tow Soo Ling, Partner

Soo Ling’s main areas of practice are intellectual property and dispute resolution. She has experience in a diverse range of matters such as building construction, company law, commercial law, disciplinary proceedings, employment law, family law, intellectual property, property law, probate and administration and shareholder disputes.
Find out more about Soo Ling
Email:  slseetow@cnplaw.com

Subramanian Pillai, Partner

Subramanian’s practice has been primarily in the field of commercial litigation and arbitration. He heads the firm’s International Arbitration and Construction, Engineering and Infrastructure teams. He has had an active commercial litigation practice for the last 26 years, he regularly advises and represents publicly listed companies, multi-national corporations and high net worth individuals in a variety of corporate and commercial disputes in the High Court and the Court of Appeal in Singapore.
Find out more about Subramanian
Email:  spillai@cnplaw.com

Tan Min-Li, Partner

Min-Li’s principal areas of expertise are in corporate and financial services with particular emphasis on corporate finance, securities and capital markets and mergers and acquisitions throughout Asia. She derives satisfaction from structuring practical legal solutions that work for clients, be it helping a client to extract value from his business through a sale or a listing or working on strategies to scale and expand, bringing the business to the next level. Her clients include private and listed companies, funds and financial institutions.
Find out more about Min-Li
Email:  mltan@cnplaw.com

Venetia Tan, Partner

Venetia is a disputes lawyer with experience handling international arbitration, litigation and advisory work on international and local commercial disputes, in particular, disputes relating to foreign investments and joint ventures, financing, distributorships, and jurisdictional challenges.
Find out more about Venetia
Email:  vtan@cnplaw.com

Wong Pei-Ling, Partner

Pei-Ling has over 23 years of experience in corporate and cross-border transactions, and has advised on investments, joint-ventures and commercial transactions in Singapore and Malaysia.  Over the years, she has also developed a practice in the areas of data protection, technology and employment.   Pei-Ling is qualified to practice law in Singapore and Malaysia, and was admitted to the English Bar in 1996.
Find out more about Pei-Ling
Email:  plwong@cnplaw.com

Lawyer Profiles

Photo	Name	Position	Profile
	Mr Wai Mun Chan	Partner. Real Estate Head	View Profile
	Mr Ken Chia	Partner. Corporate Advisory Head.	View Profile
	Mr Shengyou, Edwin Chia	Partner	View Profile
	Ms Xiaomeng Ge	Partner	View Profile
	Ms Huimin Hu	Partner	View Profile
	Mr Bill Jamieson	Partner. Co-Heads the Funds and Financial Services, and Employment Teams.	View Profile
	Mr Kenn Lim	Partner	View Profile
	Mr Subramanian Pillai	Partner. International Arbitration, Construction, Engineering and Infrastructure Head.	View Profile
	Mr Li Fei Quek	Partner. Banking and Finance and Private Clients Head.	View Profile
	Mr Ravindran Ramasamy	Partner	View Profile
	Ms Soo Ling See Tow	Partner. Intellectual Property head and Dispute Resolution Deputy Head	View Profile
	Ms Cinda Sim	Partner	View Profile
	Mr Pradeep Kumar Singh	Admin Partner. Compliance and Regulatory Head. Employment and Immigration Co-Head.	View Profile
	Ms Venetia Tan	Partner	View Profile
	Ms Lisa Theng	Managing Partner	View Profile
	Ms Pei-Ling Wong	Partner	View Profile
	Mr Jimmy Yap	Partner	View Profile