About

Over the course of Veronica Lai’s tenure as general counsel at StarHub, the legal function of the company has grown from three legal professionals into a team of 12 lawyers and one paralegal, with significant additions made to the team’s expertise in IP, M&A and capital markets. To allow lawyers to grow in different areas of expertise, network more widely both within and outside the group, and to keep things ‘always fresh and alive’ for her colleagues Lai implemented a rotation system where lawyers swap their portfolios once every three years. ‘This has helped in no small part to retain good talents’, says Lai. ‘It also diversifys skillsets and enables good resiliency whenever any lawyer goes off on leave. The StarHub Legal team has a low attrition rate, and we have consistently been rated highly every year by our CEO and internal customers for providing value adding, profession and prompt legal advisory and support’. Lai’s involvement in StarHub’s IPO, a highly significant listing in the region that involved concurrent placements in the USA and Japan, has been a highlight of her career. As part of the transaction, Lai had to manage negotiations with 10 sets of lawyers, while taking into account the different interests of individual shareholders of the telco. The highly successful listing won both the Best Domestic Equity Deal Award and the best deal award for Singapore in 2014 at the Asian Legal Business Awards. ‘My first day on the job as GC was in fact the kick off meeting for the StarHub IPO. Hence, this deal holds a very special significance for me’, Lai says. Another major highlight in Lai’s career has been the purchase and construction of the state of the art venture MeidaHub. This involved the purchase of vacant land from the government with special conditions, the planning and construction of the facility itself, and involved the migration of 200 live PayTV channels to the new Media Headend. ‘The legal work was complex at each stage of the way. The original construction had to be terminated as the Government made a decision to designate the facility as “critical support infrastructure”. This meant that the whole facility had to adhere to extensive security and hardening process and requirements, taking into account possible terrorist attacks. Agreements had to be re-negotiated or wholly terminated, to accommodate this new regulatory requirement. Extra care had to be expended, to craft in suitable indemnities and warranties’, Lai elaborates. ‘There was zero margin for error in the construction timelines and technical migration, given that StarHub currently serves more than half a million households with live 24/7 PayTV services. Apart from the technical contracts with the construction company, architects, engineers, TV platform vendors, content providers, we also structured the holding of the facility as a standalone private limited company. We were thus able to successfully divest 70% of the shares to completely finance the entire project, whilst negotiating and retaining the right to stay on premises for the next 60 years, future-proofing StarHub’. Prior to joining StarHub, Lai spent six years at law firm Rajah & Tann under the tutelage of VK Rajah, the attorney general of Singapore and Kenneth Tan.