Patrick specialises in corporate restructuring and insolvency. He was the lead partner acting for the company in the successful restructuring of China Aviation Oil Corporation, the first restructuring of an entity owned by a Chinese State Owned Enterprise.

Patrick has been recognised as a leading lawyer in his field by professional journals including Asia Legal Business, Asialaw, Asia Law and Practice, International Who's Who of Insolvency and Restructuring Lawyers, Euromoney Guide to the World's Leading Insolvency and Restructuring Lawyers, International Financial Law Review, Asia Pacific Legal 500 and Chambers Global.

He is a member of a government appointed working committee that is reviewing insolvency legislation and Chairman of the Insolvency Committee of the Law Society of Singapore.

Justice V K Rajah obtained his law degree from the National University of Singapore in 1982 and went on to obtain a First Class Master of Laws degree from the University of Cambridge.

He was awarded several prizes for academic distinction during the course of his undergraduate studies, including the Law Society Book Prize, Mallal Prize, Montrose Prize for Jurisprudence and the Koh Han Kok Book Prize. He was also a member of the National University of Singapore Team that won the Jessup Cup and International Law Mooting competition in Washington in 1982.

He was admitted as an advocate and solicitor of the Supreme Court of Singapore in 1983. He started practice with M/s Rajah & Tann and took over the helm of the firm as Managing Partner in 1986. He was amongst the first batch of lawyers in Singapore to be appointed Senior Counsel in 1997.

When he was in practice, Justice Rajah was active in the practice of insolvency law. He co-authored the pioneering insolvency textbook in Singapore on the topic of judicial management. He also acted as co-counsel in the largest insolvency in Singapore involving the collapse of Barings Bank in which he advised the inspectors appointed by the Government, the judicial managers and liquidators.

He was appointed Judicial Commissioner of the Singapore High Court on 2 January 2004 and was appointed Judge on 1 November 2004.

Michael Hwang received his legal education (both undergraduate and post-graduate) at Oxford University. He then took up a teaching appointment at the Faculty of Law at the University of Sydney before returning to Singapore to commence private practice in 1968.

In 1991 Mr. Hwang was appointed a Judicial Commissioner of the Supreme Court for a fixed term which expired at the end of 1992. During his term of office Mr Hwang dealt with a full caseload across the whole range of civil litigation. 15 of his judgments are reported in the Singapore Law Reports and several of them have been referred to with approval by other courts and academic commentators. He returned to private practice at the beginning of 1993, as the Head of Litigation at the law firm of Allen & Gledhill, Singapore. In 1997 Mr Hwang was appointed as one of the first twelve Senior Counsel of the Supreme Court of Singapore. He established his own specialist practice as Senior Counsel and Arbitrator at the beginning of 2003.

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Topic Synopsis

Schemes of arrangements and compromise have become by far the most common formal method used for restructurings in Singapore. Compromises, however, often raise issues as to how the balance should be struck between the rights of creditors and the desire of debtors to restructure. In this respect, there have been recent important developments in case law dealing with what information should be provided for creditors to in decide whether to support a scheme, how creditors should be grouped together for the purpose of voting and what the court considers when deciding whether or not to approve a scheme. There have also been important developments dealing with the interaction insolvent winding up and schemes outside winding up. These and other developments will be touched upon.

Alvin Yeo SC, is the Managing Partner of WongPartnership, and the Joint Managing Director of Clifford Chance Wong, the Singapore joint venture law firm between Clifford Chance and WongPartnership. His main areas of practice are banking and corporate disputes, insolvency and restructuring, and construction and civil engineering matters.

Alvin graduated from King’s College, University of London, and was admitted to the English Bar in 1987 and the Singapore Bar in 1988. In January 2000, Alvin became the youngest lawyer to be appointed Senior Counsel.

He is a member of the Council of the Law Society of Singapore, the Singapore International Arbitration Centre's Main Panel of Arbitrators, and a Fellow of the Singapore Institute of Arbitrators. Alvin has recently been appointed to a committee chaired by a High Court Judge to undertake a comprehensive review of the legal services sector and reporting to the government. He has also been appointed to the Appeals Advisory Panel of the Monetary Authority of Singapore since 2003 and is a Member of Parliament.

Ai Lian has been with Ernst & Young for more than 30 years. She qualified as a Chartered Accountant in London in 1973 and is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales. In July 1981, she was made a Partner at Ernst & Young in Singapore. She was appointed Managing Partner in 1996 and Chairman of the firm in 2005. She continues to maintain direct responsibility for a number of the firm’s major public-listed and banking clients.

She shares her professional expertise with government, professional and educational institutions in Singapore. Her current key appointments are Council Member of Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Singapore (ICPAS), Chairman of Banking & Finance Committee of ICPAS, Chairman of Accounting Standards Committee of ICPAS, Governing Council Member of Singapore Institute of Directors, Member of Appeal Advisory Panel of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, Member of Income Tax Board Review, Board Member of Public Utilities Board and Board Member of International Enterprise Singapore.

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Yew Huat began his career as a Chartered Accountant with Ernst & Young’s London office and upon his return to Singapore in 1983, he embarked on financial advisory work, whilst continuing his practice in audit. To date, Yew Huat has more than 20 years of experience in specialised areas of corporate recovery and transaction advisory services. In 1990, he was actively involved in establishing the Transaction Advisory Services division.

Over the last 15 years, Yew Huat has been engaged in a wide variety of assignments including mergers and acquisitions, transaction support, dispute resolution, investigations and capital market activities. These assignments have involved wide and diverse industries spanning across nearly all countries throughout Asia. Yew Huat is well known in Singapore, having been involved in major insolvency and restructuring cases, as well as having served as expert witness in business valuation and loss claim cases.

Nick currently runs a boutique corporate finance and corporate restructuring firm. He qualified as a Chartered Accountant in England. He has considerable experience gained in corporate restructuring, business turnaround, corporate finance and major investigations. He has considerable experience gained in corporate finance advisory services, in particular, mergers & acquisitions, investigations, cash flow and profit forecasting, corporate restructuring, high value add transaction support services, fund raising, leading deals, share valuation, due diligence and business review.

He has also advised major listed companies on transactions requiring shareholders, stock exchange and the relevant authorities approvals, including preparing of circulars to shareholders. Work in the region included leading a cross-border team in the valuation of a major infrastructure fund with commitment funds in excess of US$1 billion and more than 25 individual projects. These projects covered independent power plants, roads, ports, airlines and telecommunications. He was involved in nearly all of the major corporate restructuring and investigation assignments in Singapore in the past 15 years.

The Honourable Mr Justice Lightman (Sir Gavin Lightman) in 1961 obtained a first class degree in law at University College London (of which he has been elected a Fellow) and in 1962 a Master’s degree at the University of Michigan. He has taught at the University of Sheffield and at Merton College Oxford. He was called to the Bar in 1963 and appointed Queen’s Counsel in 1980. He had a very large and wide-ranging litigation practice both in this country and abroad (and in particular) in Singapore and Hong Kong. His clients included Playboy, Private Eye and (in his successful fight to establish the Globe Theatre) Sam Wanamaker.

In 1994 he was appointed a judge of the High Court assigned to the Chancery Division. In 1996 he was also nominated a judge of the Administrative Court and in 1997 was assigned as a judge of the Competition Court. He has given a number of important judgments in the fields of insolvency, court procedure, mediation, trusts, intellectual property and administrative law. As well as having co-authored a case book on Real Property Law, he has written with Gabriel Moss QC Lightman & Moss on The Law of Administrators and Receivers of Companies (the title has changed to the aforementioned for the 4th edition, now the leading work on Administrators and Receivers and, and with the fourth edition in course of preparation). He is a frequent speaker and writer of articles on these subjects and in other areas of public and professional interest e.g. pensions, legal process and legal education.