OUR PEOPLE
Clarence Guo
Director
Clarence is an advocate and solicitor in Singapore of 10 years' standing. The vast majority of Clarence's clientele is from outside Singapore, so he has broad and deep experience regarding the regulatory environment for attracting foreign capital. He also works closely with partner firms in the US and various offshore jurisdictions.
Since 2017, Clarence has assisted over 150+ blockchain projects and funds with their corporate structuring and licensing in a broad variety of offshore jurisdictions such as the British Virgin Islands, Panama, Cayman Islands and Seychelles, and so has a good understanding of the legal environment in these jurisdictions. His clientele is almost exclusively from the blockchain space, and is a trusted legal advisor to numerous founders and innovative companies globally.
Prior to blockchain work, Clarence was a recognised lawyer in the banking and finance space in Singapore, having been endorsed in the banking and finance section of the Legal 500 edition as having a "fine record in real estate finance".
Career Highlights
- Assisted with applications to regulatory sandbox for cryptocurrency related projects.
- Assisted with applications for fund management registrations and licences in various jurisdictions.
- Assisted with applications to Monetary Authority of Singapore for licences under the Payments Services Act (digital assets law) for a variety of clients in the cryptocurrency exchange business.
- Issuance of legal opinions and advice covering regulatory issues in the areas of securities law and virtual assets law.
- Assisted with full set of legal documentation for hedge funds, private equity funds and family offices in both offshore and offshore jurisdictions.
- Advised on numerous token sale projects (in the areas of DeFi protocols, NFTs, fund management, digital assets exchanges, liquidity scalability and cross-chain interoperability protocols, e-commerce, social messaging ecosystems, oil production, advertising, stored value facility, insurance, and prediction markets).
- Drafting of full set of legal documentation for various offshore-based security token offering projects.
- Drafting of customer documentation and KYC/AML procedures for various cryptocurrency exchanges, as well as providing legal support for setup of office in Singapore.
- Assisted various early and mid stage companies with their fundraising and investment documentation (pre-seed, seed, Series A, Series B), as well as general corporate documentation requirements.
- Acted for various local and international banks in a variety of financings, such as project financing of both local and overseas property (Australia, UK, Maldives).
- Acted for one of the largest crowdfunding platforms in Singapore in drafting the crowdfunding legal documents and arrangements, and advising on regulatory compliance matters.
- Acted for various invoice financing platforms in Singapore in the drafting of legal documentation and advising on regulatory compliance matters.
- Assisted various token offering projects in negotiations and documentation to resolve investor disputes.
Joel Lim
Associate Director
Joel’s expertise lies in advising clients in achieving the most commercially sound outcome across a broad spectrum of contentious work. His practice area focuses on commercial litigation, shareholders’ dispute, investigations, and arbitration.
He regularly advises multinational corporations, private and listed companies in a wide range of areas including shareholders’ disputes, breaches of director’s duties, employment, investigations, and employment disputes. He also has strong expertise in the area of sports and education related matters.
Joel is also proficient in Mandarin and has advised Chinese clients in litigation proceedings. In 2016, Joel was selected for placement under the Supreme Court’s Young Amicus Curiae Scheme, and has subsequently appeared twice as amicus curiae in two separate Magistrate’s Appeal.
Career Highlights
Shareholders' Dispute
- Successfully represented a minority shareholder in advancing a claim of minority oppression by the majority shareholders of a civil engineering company.
- Successfully represented a minority shareholder in a claim over breaches of directors’ duties by the Company which was formerly listed on Philips Securities OTC.
Commercial Disputes
- Advised and managed the disputes for a Fortune 500 Company’s global commercial dispute during its pre-litigation phase, and achieved successful outcome in vast majority of the cases.
- Successfully acted for a broadcasting company in an ICC arbitration valued at more than US$80 million regarding the media rights to a major Indian sporting event.
- Successfully acted for a group of mine owners in an SIAC arbitration regarding disputes over the sale and purchase of various entities relating to coal mines in Indonesia.
- Successfully represented a local marketing agency in recovering the fees owed to it by a footwear distributor.
- Successfully represented an international bank in defending against a claim brought by an investor for the alleged mis-selling of the financial product popularly known as “accumulators”.
- Successfully represented an international glass manufacturer in achieving a successful outcome in respect of a suit brought by its client for alleged manufacturing defects supplied to a major private education complex in Singapore.
- Represented a local holding company of a large chain of childcare centres in relation to a contentious acquisition of the group’s brand and businesses.
Arbitration Related Matters
- Assisted in the landmark case of AJU v AJT [2011] 4 SLR 739, where the Singapore Court of Appeal affirmed its minimal interventionist approach in arbitration. The underlying dispute involved a sports promoter involved in the organisation of a tennis tournament in Thailand.
- Successfully represented the respondent, an Asian government, in resisting an application to set aside an arbitral award.
Employment Dispute
- Advised a local company in the termination of a senior employee, and in enforcing the confidentiality and non-compete obligations owed by the employee to the company.
- Advised a local company in managing the planned termination of its employees.
- Advised a local listed company in terminating the services of its general manager, and managing the transition process.
Appointments & Memberships
- Adjunct Lecturer on Tort law, Contract Law, and Defects in Construction and Facilities Management Issues at Real Estate & Construction Centre
- Commentary on Singapore Construction Adjudication Review 2016 Edition (SAL Academy Publishing, 2018)
- Commentary on Order 26, Order 26A, and Order 36 of Rules of Court in Singapore Civil Procedure 2016 (Singapore, Sweet & Maxwell, 2016)
- Committee Member, Education Committee, Association of Strata Managers
- Committee Member, Kickboxing Federation of Singapore
Su Zhirong
Senior Associate
Zhirong is a corporate lawyer with around 10 years of experience.
He graduated from the National University of Singapore in 2011 and started his training in a leading regional law firm. Zhirong was part of the firm’s capital markets team and gained a firm grounding in corporate law.
Zhirong then spent several years as legal counsel in a qualifying full bank, working on banking and finance related work and general corporate matters.
Zhirong is bilingual in English and Chinese (both written and spoken).
Career Highlights
- Acting for a local private equity fund in a leveraged buyout of a Singaporean food processing company.
- Acting for the vendors of a Singapore holding company with PRC-based plastics injection assets via a competitive bid process to a US-based plastics injection company.
- Acting for the vendor of a local construction products company in the sale of his substantial interests to a German multinational company.
- Acting for a listed agricultural company in the formation of a joint venture in Myanmar, its applications for investment permits from the Myanmar Investment Commission and the acquisition of various food processing assets from a local party.
- Acting for the vendors of a Singapore smart shipping solution provider in a sale to a French engineering company.
Tan Mao Lin
Senior Associate
Mao Lin was admitted as an Advocate and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Singapore in 2017, and is an Associate with the Firm. He graduated from Monash University with a Bachelor of Laws First Class Honours in 2015.
Prior to joining Jacque Law LLC, Mao Lin trained and worked with senior counsel in one of Singapore’s top dispute resolution firm in appeals, trials and applications before the Singapore Court of Appeal, the Singapore International Commercial Court and the High Court.
Mao Lin has also appeared as counsel in the High Court, the Family Courts and the State Courts. Mao Lin’s areas of practice include contentious and non-contentious work. His areas of practice include matrimonial and family law, probate (contentious and non-contentious), medical negligence and general commercial disputes.
Mao Lin is fluent in English and Mandarin.
Chea Wei Chiat
Associate
Wei Chiat graduated from the University of Bristol with a Bachelor of Laws (Honours) degree in 2019 and was called to the Singapore Bar as an Advocate and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Singapore in 2021.
In his short time as an associate, Wei Chiat has been involved in various family law matters as well as high stake commercial disputes. He is also passionate about medical negligence work after having undertaken medical law as one of his subjects in university and is presently involved as counsel in various medical law related law suits in the High Court of Singapore.
Wei Chiat writes and speaks English and Mandarin.
Vaithieis Kumar
Associate
Vaithieis Kumar graduated from University of Tasmania in the top 30% of her cohort. She was called to the Singapore Bar as an Advocate and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Singapore in 2021.
She has been involved in a wide variety of contentious and non-contentious matters, including medical negligence matters, family and matrimonial law, probate, and estate planning as well as trust and equity matters.
Vaithieis’ passion lies in helping people who find themselves in dire situations. She is a firm believer of giving back to the society and as such volunteered at the Criminal Legal Aid Bureau (CLAS) during her undergraduate days where she was exposed to litigants who struggle to achieve justice due to their circumstances. This impacted her greatly and ever since then; she has been determined to put her legal knowledge to good use.
Vaithieis is fluent in both English and Tamil.
Victor Cheah
Legal Manager
Victor has a Bachelor’s degree in Business (Economics and Finance) from the Singapore Institute of Management. He is a great asset to the team and is instrumental on matters concerning client management.
He has been working in the legal industry for more than 8 years, and has a wealth of experience from his background working in an international law firm prior to joining our firm.
Outside of work, Victor is an avid volunteer in church and devotes his time to various social causes.