The Singapore Business Times is suggesting in a report that KhattarWong’s managing partner Tan Chong Huat and a significant number of partners and lawyers from its corporate, litigation and criminal litigation departments are understood to be thinking of leaving the firm, due to differences between the senior partners.
We have to say we are surprised that this little tidbit? has managed to leak to the press. And…….especially so in Singapore. It must mean that partner relations are at an all time low
Here’s the report in full
Along with Mr Tan, the senior lawyers said to be planning a departure are: Rajan Menon, senior partner in its Corporate and Securities Laws department (Mr Tan is the head of that department); Hee Theng Fong, head of its International China Practice and partner in its Litigation and Dispute Resolution department; and Subhas Anandan, head of its Criminal Litigation department.
And they are understood to be taking many of the firm’s lawyers with them, to possibly set up a new firm.
K Anparasan, its deputy managing partner and partner in its Litigation & Dispute Resolution department, is however believed to be staying.
When contacted yesterday, KhattarWong said: ‘We don’t have anything official to share with you at this time.’
BT understands from sources close to the company that ‘the parties are trying to resolve their difficulties’, and that the firm has not received a single letter of resignation or a letter of termination of partnership from any of the partners.
It is believed that mediation talks are taking place between the parties yesterday and today, and that the firm is likely to make an official announcement on the situation later today.
The source said there remains the possibility of the differences being resolved and the lawyers remaining with the firm.
‘It’s basically a clash of ideas,’ another source said. ‘The people who want to leave have a different vision from those staying. They want to expand, have more offices in different parts of the world.’
Mr Anandan, when approached, told BT that the rift between the law firm’s corporate lawyers and litigation partners has been growing for about a year. But things came to a head a few days ago, he said.
When asked if he will stay or leave, Mr Anandan said he has not made up his mind. ‘There’s no urgency for me to make up my mind about this because my practice is my own,’ he said.
Mr Anandan, known as one of the country’s most high-profile criminal lawyers, was brought in to beef up the firm’s crime team in 2007 – and his departure will be felt, sources said.
Some observers have also expressed concern as to what such a departure will mean for the firm, given the possibility that a substantial number are thinking of leaving.
According to the firm’s website, KhattarWong has ‘more than 120 lawyers and professionals in offices and associated offices in Singapore, China, Hong Kong SAR, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand’.
Others told BT that any departure of Mr Tan and Mr Menon – who bring with them much corporate legal experience – could hurt the firm’s corporate practice. Likewise the departure of Mr Hee – whose eponymous firm was merged with KhattarWong a few years ago for its experience in cross-border cases involving China – would impact the firm’s China practice.
Mr Tan has been credited as being responsible for aggressively growing KhattarWong’s practice since he took over in 2007 (with Mr Anparasan as his second-in-command), taking over some small firms and growing the firm’s practice in the region. Under his watch, in addition to Mr Hee’s firm, KhattarWong also merged with Compass LLC and TM Hoon & Co. It also opened offices in the Vietnamese cities of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh, and pulled in more shipping and corporate lawyers.
He was said to have been responsible for pulling the firm’s numbers up to over 120, from the 73 lawyers it had when he took over.
KhattarWong was one of the biggest three law firms in Singapore in the early 1990s, with more than 160 lawyers at its peak. Mr Tan said in 2007 that the firm deliberately scaled down over the past decade due to the financial crisis, removal of scale costs for conveyancing and changes to the industry.
Mr Tan, 47, and Mr Anparasan, 43, were in 2007 touted as the ‘new blood’ injected to bring change to the firm, taking over from the ‘old guard’.
Mr Tan, who was from Stamford Law before joining KhattarWong, serves as a director on several listed companies and sits on the Corporate Governance Council set up by the Monetary Authority of Singapore.