Antony Sassi News Today

UK law firm Reynolds Porter Chamberlain has launched an M&A practice in Singapore with the addition of a Quahe Woo & Palmer transactions team, including practice leader Kenneth Leong to head the group.

In its inaugural list, Asian Legal Business presents thenext generation of the country’s lawyers who have demonstrated great potential in the industry, while earning wide acclaim from their clients in the process. The list is in alphabetical order and some lawyers have been profiled.

The year 2022 could not have panned out more differently for the two Asian hubs. Hong Kong, which aligned itself with China’s Zero COVID policy until quite recently, has seen its economy slow and professionals head for the exit; however, its fundamentals remain strong, and the city is known for nothing if not its resilience. And while Singapore might have gained ground in the process – and attracted a flurry of law firms -the growth of its legal industry could be constrained by its innate dr...

The firm continues its rapid growth with the addition of Nicholas Lauw

The insurance market in Hong Kong has seen several interesting years of development, particularly in the past 12 months.

The Court of Appeal recently reviewed the adequacy of the reasons for a regulator's decision that there was no prima facie case of professional misconduct. The issue arose in the context of an application for judicial review. While there is (as yet) no common law general duty on the part of an administrative body to give reasons for their decisions, this is a developing area of the law in Hong Kong and much depends on the legal framework within which a regulator takes a decision.

UK firm RPC is looking to make inroads into Korea after hiring Peter Kwon as a partner in Hong Kong from Ashurst, where he was that firm’s Korea practice co-head.

Trial dates are regarded as 'milestone dates' for civil litigation and are therefore immovable, save for 'exceptional circumstances'. In such circumstances, the courts have a discretion to adjourn a trial. An exercise of such discretion involves balancing the prejudice suffered by the parties, as a result of an adjournment, with the primary aim of securing a just resolution of a dispute in accordance with their substantive rights. In a recent case, the unexpected death of the pla...

In Daimler AG v Leiduck, the Court of Appeal recently reviewed what appears to have been a novel point regarding which party in civil proceedings has the burden of proving that a witness is competent to give evidence at the time of giving evidence. (1) At first instance, the judge had decided that the burden is on the party that calls the witness (in this case the defendant), as opposed to the party that challenges the competence of the witness. The defendant applied for permission to appeal a...

Mathnasium Center Licensing, LLC v Chang, (1) the Court of Appeal allowed the defendants appeal against a lower courts finding that he had made a false statement of truth with respect to an admission in a defence filed on behalf of a company. As is normal in such appeals, the Court of Appeal was reluctant to disturb a lower courts primary finding. However, in this case, the Court of Appeal considered that the lower court had been plainly wrong to make an order for committal for contempt of cour...