Drew & Napier - Partners' Profiles

Daniel Tan’s practice centres on commercial dispute resolution and property litigation (including estates and trusts disputes). The clients he has advised include Swiss, German and other multi-national corporations, listed companies in Singapore, Hong Kong & Tokyo and high net-worth individuals from Singapore and the Asia-Pacific region.

In particular, Daniel Tan has advised clients and worked with legal counsel from the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Daniel speaks Mandarin with proficiency and is able to read and write in both the traditional and simplified forms of Chinese script.

Experience

Daniel Tan’s dispute resolution experience includes advising, acting and assisting in various disputes:

acted for a major Japanese international conglomerate in relation to a criminal complaint against a trader for unauthorised commodities trades. The amount involved was approximately US$81m. This led to investigations by the Commercial Affairs Department and the trader has been jailed after being prosecuted by the State.
a dispute over the estate of an Indonesian banker involving assets in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, England, the Channel Islands, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and the United States of America. The dispute involved complex legal and evidential issues relating to the tracing of assets and the distribution of the estate and was eventually decided before the Court of Appeal of Singapore;
a dispute arising out of allegations of misrepresentation/s and breach/es of fiduciary duty between former shareholders of a limited exempt company that operated a proprietary club;
a dispute between the minority shareholders and the majority over allegations of minority oppression in the running of a multi-national conglomerate with listed companies registered and/or having business presence in (inter alia) Singapore, Malaysia, Liberia, Hong Kong and China;
a dispute arising out of a contract for the sale and purchase of a strategic block of shares in a listed company involving listed entities in Shanghai, Singapore and Hong Kong;
a dispute between a leading Singapore bank and a finance company that was eventually decided by appeal to the Court of Appeal involving the foreclosure by a mortgagee over the interest of a main contractor in a construction project involving complex legal questions in relation to proprietary estoppel, the purchaser’s lien, and the interaction between equitable principles and the Torrens legislation, in particular the mirror principle;
a dispute arising out of allegations of breach/es of directors’ and fiduciary duties in relation to a limited exempt company that operated a proprietary club;
a dispute between the daughters-in-law of a high net worth Indonesian-Chinese family over allegations of resulting and/or constructive trust in relation to immovable properties in Singapore;
a dispute between the administrator of a deceased person’s estate and the relatives of the deceased person over allegations of resulting trust in relation to immovable properties in Singapore;
an appeal to the Court of Appeal in relation to a liquidator’s refusal to accept a proof of debt filed by a creditor which was a related company to the wound-up company;
a dispute arising out of the recognition in the Singapore courts of competing foreign judgments of the New York courts (original and appellate) and the Indonesian courts (original and appellate) in respect of commercial notes issued in the New York money markets;
an arbitral dispute over a rent-review clause in an agreement between a major property development corporate group and the Singapore branch of a major European bank;
planned and carried out the simultaneous execution of a Search Order (formerly known as an Anton Piller order) over several locations in a dispute over breach of confidential information;
a dispute over the removal of a director in a Singapore company pursuant to the terms of a shareholders’ agreement;
a dispute in relation to allegations of fraudulent trading and/or the avoidance provisions of the Bankruptcy Act between the liquidators of a wound-up company and the former directors.