Going Regional
Our Managing Director Tan Peng Chin and Senior Director Chandrasegar started their legal careers in the early 80’s with Freshfields when it was the only international law firm that was allowed to practise Singapore laws.

After leaving Freshfields, Chandrasegar worked in Johnson Stokes and Masters in Hong Kong for about 5 years before working for Arthur Loke and Partners when it was associated with Baker & McKenzie.

Many of our lawyers have also worked in major Singapore law firms that are associated with International Firms before joining us. Because of this legacy and due to the requirements of many of our MNC clients, Tan Peng Chin LLC undertakes a very substantial amount of regional or cross border work.

As Singapore lawyers are educated only on, and are able to practise only, Singapore laws, rather than to set up offices in the region, we prefer to work with established and well regarded law firms in the various jurisdictions.

The advantages of this arrangement are that:

1. we can source out and appoint the most suitable law firm for a particular matter. Firm A may be excellent for banking work but not for dispute resolution or litigation;

2. because we are a “client” to the foreign law firm we instruct, we tend to get better service. If the service is not satisfactory, we will not use the firm for future transactions;

3. we are able to “shop around” and help our clients engage the firm with the most reasonable fees. In today’s world where most clients have a budgetary constraint, this can be very important;

4. lawyers are mobile and talents can disappear from a law firm very suddenly. Because we are not tied up with any foreign firm if a very good foreign lawyer was to switch firms, we can still instruct him in his new firm;

5. because we are making use of the foreign law firm’s existing resources, the cost of obtaining this foreign legal advice would be lower. It is expensive to set up a foreign office, which cost ultimately will have to be shared with the clients.

The regional law firms we deal with include:

We are a member of the Asean Law Association. Please check out "Legal Systems in Asean" if you would like to know more about the different legal systems in the Asean countries.