Responsible Business & Governance
We bring together specialist teams from across the Firm to offer our clients a coordinated, multidisciplinary solution to manage their ESG risks, and to provide advisory services on among other things, regulatory and governance issues, investigations, and litigation support. These include:
Governance
- Directors' duties and governance
- Greenwashing risks
- Strategy and response to activist pressures
- Sustainability reporting and disclosures
- Data privacy and cyber security
- Anti-corruption and money laundering
Responsible Business
- Sustainable labour practices, including health and safety and diversity
- Food safety and security
- Supply chain legal risks
- Environmental pollution
- Regulatory advisory such as licensing requirements for renewable energy projects, carbon exchanges and carbon emissions reductions trading platforms
- Carbon tax, government schemes and incentives relating to the green economy
- Carbon credits and carbon trading
- ESG-related disputes and litigation
A selection of our notable matters includes the following:
- Advising a leading energy and urban development player in relation to the terms and conditions of its electronic renewable energy certificate (REC) trading platform. The use of blockchain technology on the REC platform ensures transparency and integrity of every transaction as well as better security, while the quality of RECs is verified by third-party validators.
- Advising a leading airline on their proposed carbon neutral and offset programme in Singapore, in particular any licensing and regulatory consents applicable to the programme.
- Advising various MNCs involved in the supply of F&B products on the relevant requirements in Singapore relating to the import, export, distribution, retailing, labelling, advertising and safety of F&B products.
- Advising the development arm of a listed company on an internal investigation into whistleblowing complaints made against a senior manager in an overseas office, involving allegations of corruption, improper gifts and hospitality given and received and conflicts of interest.
- Acting as counsel for a subsidiary of one of Asia's largest renewable energy companies in an LCIA arbitration against a subsidiary of one of Asia’s leading private investment firms in relation to disputes arising out of a US$400 million share purchase transaction.
- Acted for a claimant, a global leading provider of environmental solutions, in an international arbitration (under the auspices of the ICC arbitration rules) against a Middle East government over disputes relating to the claimant’s construction of a waste treatment plant, which was a state-of-the-art and first of its kind facility in that country, and obtained a substantial award in respect of a claim of approximately US$100 million, with the counterclaim by the government dismissed.
- Acting for the environmental technology arm of one of Singapore’s flagship multinational companies in its claims against a government state agency in the Middle East relating to the design, construction, operation and maintenance of a treatment plant with a contract value in excess of S$1 billion.
- Acting in a proposed joint venture in relation to the launch, establishment and operation of Climate Impact X (CIX). CIX is a new sustainability initiative born out of Singapore’s Emerging Stronger Taskforce’s Alliance for Action (AfA) on Sustainability which aims to position Singapore as a hub for carbon-related services and nature-based solutions.