Allen & Gledhill

Singaporean firm Allen & Gledhill is regularly called in to work on the largest matters in the island city state and has also acted in famous global investigations such as Operation Car Wash and 1MDB.

The firm

Allen & Gledhill’s white-collar practice, formally established in 2017, offers a wealth of experience and unique insight into financial crime matters thanks in part to its leadership, which is made up of former prosecutors, judicial officers and specialist lawyers.

Aaron Lee is co-head of the firm’s white-collar and investigations practice. Before joining private practice, Lee was a deputy public prosecutor and state counsel in the Attorney General’s Chambers of Singapore.

Jason Chan SC is also co-head of the white-collar and investigations practice. He advises local and overseas corporations on compliance management systems to help prevent corporate fraud and corruption. Chan’s significant expertise was acknowledged when he was appointed senior counsel of the Supreme Court of Singapore in 2020. Prior to joining Allen & Gledhill, he was an assistant registrar at the Supreme Court of Singapore and a deputy public prosecutor.

Partner Sanjiv Rajan works on white-collar defence and fraud investigations, advising clients on matters relating to corruption, insider trading, anti-money laundering and extradition. He regularly works on multi-jurisdictional and cross-border fraud investigations, coordinating responses by companies to regulatory and criminal enforcement agencies in Europe, the US and Asia. 

Partner Vincent Leow acts for banks, corporates and individuals on contentious matters, including those arising from internal inquiries and demands from regulators. 

The firm’s deputy head of the white-collar and investigations practice is Lee Bik Wei, a partner whose main areas of practice include civil and commercial litigation and white-collar investigations. She advises multinational corporations, including private and listed companies. As a proficient Mandarin speaker, she also advises Chinese clients.

Ex-associate Lee May Ling was promoted to partner in January 2020. She has experience in advising multinational conglomerates on how to navigate foreign anti-fraud, corruption and money laundering laws.

Recent events

The firm has had a successful couple of years taking on corruption and tax fraud cases with links to Singapore, the British Virgin Islands and France.

It is helping Singapore-based engineering company United Engineers Developments recover damages in a civil suit tied to an investigation into a fraud and corruption scheme. The company filed criminal complaints with Singapore’s Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) in 2015 following an internal investigation that found substantial sums had allegedly been misappropriated from the company.

The CPIB brought criminal charges against several individuals in December 2016, and in 2017 a former executive was sentenced to 14 years in jail for money laundering and cheating offences. The criminal proceedings concluded in December 2018, with four defendants pleading guilty to the charges against them and receiving prison sentences.

The firm represented Steep Rise Limited, a company based in the British Virgin Islands and beneficially owned by French citizen and professional international poker player Fabrice Touil, in a goods and services tax fraud investigation.

The company attempted to challenge a S$10 million asset seizure by Singapore on behalf of France in 2017. The seizure was originally approved by the High Court and was upheld by the Supreme Court in March 2020. Touil is facing criminal proceedings linked to the matter in France and denies wrongdoing.

Network

Allen & Gledhill is based in Singapore and also has offices in Yangon, Myanmar and Vietnam, which was established in 2020. The firm is part of a regional network that includes Rahmat Lim & Partners, an associate firm in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. 

Clients

The firm has worked for Singapore Technologies Marine, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, United Engineers Developments and RBC Royal Bank. It has also taken on work representing the National Kidney Foundation and Ikano Bank, established by the founder of furniture retailer Ikea.

Track record

Over the past decade, the firm has acted in several high-profile cases. It advised engineering company Singapore Technologies Marine in one of the largest graft scandals in Singapore’s corporate history. Ong Teck Liam, then group financial controller, allegedly played a role in claiming US$18 million in bribes as entertainment expenses between 2000 and 2011. Following an internal investigation by the company and a criminal probe by the CPIB, which spanned several years, the agency obtained the convictions, including Ong, of all the employees it charged with corruption and falsification of accounts in the case. Allen & Gledhill lawyers also advised company officers who were called as witnesses during the proceedings. 

The firm acted for RBC Royal Bank’s Trinidad and Tobago branch in one of the largest money laundering cases in Singapore. The bank had been the victim of a wire-transfer fraud in which US$3.2 million was wrongly transferred from Trinidad and Tobago to Singapore. The team from Allen & Gledhill led the investigation into the fraud as well as the recovery action, in a probe which also reached Malaysia. The former director of Hayashi Construction and Engineering, Ambrose Dionysius, was convicted in Singapore in connection with the matter in 2017. He was cleared of three money laundering charges in November 2019 following an appeal, but the court upheld six other charges. He is currently serving a five-year prison sentence.