The Legal 500 2019 rankings are announced for Asia-Pacific

Tanner De Witt is very pleased to be recommended again this year in The Legal 500 Asia Pacific Guide 2019 for its four main practice areas; corporate and commercial, labour and employment, restructuring and insolvency and litigation and dispute resolution. We are very proud to announce that Ian De Witt, Robin Darton and Kim Boreham have retained their leading individual ranking, while solicitor Sunny Hathiramani continues to be recognised as next generation lawyer for our top tier Restructuring and Insolvency Practice. The full rankings can be found here.

Dispute resolution: litigation – ranked: tier 3

Mark Side leads the team at Tanner De Witt, which recently assisted Grant MacEwan University with tracing and recovery of CA$11.8m misappropriated through cyber fraud, with the team facilitating the recovery of approximately CA$4m in Hong Kong through obtaining a series of emergency injunctions and disclosure orders. Clients also include Micro-Pak Limited and LiMing Capital. Jeff Lane is recommended as ‘a fantastic practitioner, who gives clear and commercial advice on complex issues, and, most importantly, achieves results’.

Restructuring and insolvency – ranked: tier 1

The ‘very strong‘ two-partner team at Tanner De Witt has ‘an excellent reputation for contentious insolvency matters‘; it receives a raft of mandates from insolvency practitioners and, partly because of its independent Hong Kong status, referral work from international law firms to advise on the Hong Kong aspects of cross-border matters. The ‘excellent‘ Ian De Witt has been advising ENRE Holdings as a major creditor on the restructuring of Petrocom; notably De Witt recently successfully stayed the winding-up order against Petrocom, enabling the company to recommence its trading operations. Robin Darton has a strong reputation on both the creditor and the debtor side for his ability to represent the office-holders or directors of troubled companies. Much of Darton’s work includes multi-jurisdictional matters, with a significant proportion flowing from offshore issues. Additional clients include KPMG, Borrelli Walsh, FTI Consulting and KordaMentha. Associate Sunny Hathiramani is also recommended.

Employment – ranked: tier 2

Deeply entrenched in the local market, independent law firm Tanner De Witt’s two-partner team provides ‘excellent service‘ across the spectrum of employment matters impacting local employers and their mid-senior level executives. By dint of its independent status, the firm receives a significant amount of referral work as well as a regular flow of direct instructions, in particular from clients in the financial services industry. The team is best-known for its contentious expertise, and in this respect the ‘very responsive‘ Russell Bennett has ‘in-depth experience‘ and is appreciated by clients not only for his robust representation before the courts and tribunals but also his ‘willingness to explore options to settle out of court‘. Leveraging her litigation background, Kim Boreham has extensive experience representing clients in the Hong Kong courts in relation to injunction applications, enforcement of restrictive covenants and other contentious employment issues.

Corporate (including M&A) – ranked: tier 6

Independent Hong Kong firm Tanner De Witt delivers ‘professional and efficient service‘ across a wide ambit of corporate matters. Its diverse practice covers M&A, joint ventures, corporate reorganisations, private equity transactions, shareholder agreements, franchising agreements, distribution arrangements and various other issues. Although the firm is primarily known for acting for middle-market clients, its first-rate reputation also sees it advise a number of household names, such as Facebook and Philips Electronics. Under the joint leadership of Eddie Look and Tim Drew, there has been a significant uptick in mandates, and the practice has been further buoyed by the recent arrival of Pàdraig Walsh from Bird & Bird. Walsh has particular experience of acting for clients in technology-related industries, such as fintech, insurtech, regtech and cleantech. The firm also acts for clients active in other areas, such as electronics, fashion, hotels and financial services. River Stone, who made partner in November 2017, is a fluent speaker of English, Cantonese, Mandarin and Shanghainese. Jan Möller, who qualified in the Netherlands in 2008, has practised as a foreign lawyer in Hong Kong since 2012.

For more information click here.