McDermott Will & Emery expands its team in newly launched Singapore office

McDermott Will & Emery expands its team in newly launched Singapore office

The US firm scoops up a three-member corporate team from Squire Patton Boggs to establish its presence in Singapore

Chicago-based international law firm McDermott Will & Emery has scooped up a three-lawyer corporate team from Squire Patton Boggs in Singapore. The firm had launched its office in Singapore last week.

Corporate partner Alfred Chia along with counsel Dawn Tan and Melissa Kwek are the new hires for McDermott in Singapore. They get reunited with Squire's former Singapore managing partner Ignatius Hwang, who joined McDermott early this year to help the US firm set up shop in the city-state.

The trio will be associated with McDermott's global transactions practice and focus on general corporate work, boosting the energy and international projects expertise offered by Hwang and energy expert Merrick White. White had joined McDermott in July from King & Spalding and has since relocated to Singapore from London.

Chia, a transactions specialist bring along more than two decades of experience advising on cross-border transactions across Asia, Australia and the Middle East. He is double qualified in Singapore and UK and focuses his practice on projects, banking and finance, M&A, and blockchain and cryptocurrency matters besides international energy, renewables and infrastructure projects.

Chia also has significant experience advising on the transactional aspects of onshore and offshore wind farms, ports and floating energy assets as well as other infrastructure projects across Asia. He was associated with Squire Patton Boggs for nearly nine years having joined the firm in 2012.

Before joining Squire, he worked as a consultant for Bryan Cave prior to its merger with UK firm Berwin Leighton Paisner and spent eight years at Herbert Smith Freehills as an associate in Perth and Singapore.

Tan handles corporate law and brings with her more than a decade of experience in cross-border transactions, while Kwek focuses on projects in the petrochemical, energy and infrastructure sectors, as well as M&A and cross-border corporate transactions.

According to Michael Poulos, McDermott's partner-in-charge of firm strategy, the trio add great firepower for its international clients in Singapore's booming financial and technology market while further strengthening the firm's ambitious growth strategy in Asia Pacific region.

The newly launched Singapore arm of McDermott will focus on a variety of practices including energy and infrastructure, M&A, capital markets, technology, government investigations and arbitration and private wealth and tax.