Specialist & Private Client Disputes; Private Wealth

Alvin Lim is a Partner in the Specialist & Private Client Disputes Practice and Private Wealth Practice.

His main practice areas are in private wealth and commercial litigation. He regularly advises on succession trust and probate law, company and employment law, commercial disputes, and regulatory and compliance matters.

Alvin has an active private wealth practice, and advises both institutional and individual clients in a broad spectrum of contentious and non-contentious areas. He advises high-net-worth individuals on succession planning and structuring of diverse asset classes in multiple jurisdictions. He also advises institutions, families and individuals in disputes relating to trust structures and fiduciary relationships, inheritance and estate matters, and vulnerable persons and mental capacity issues.

In addition, he has acted for trust companies and private clients in obtaining various forms of court relief, including rectification of trust deeds, petition for guidance on issues relating to the administration of the trust, authority to lease and mortgage a property held on trust, and declarations regarding the legal and beneficial ownership of a property.

Alvin also has a breadth of experience in civil and commercial litigation. He has acted in a wide range of disputes relating to cross-border investments, shareholding and directorships, partnerships, tenancies, and financial instruments such as facility agreements, convertible bonds and options.

Work Highlights

Significant matters that Alvin has been involved in include advising / acting for the following:

The private wealth management arm of an international bank, as trustee of a large trust, in disputes with a beneficiary and the protectors of a trust which arose from retroactive changes in a foreign tax regime. A successful businesswoman in a senior leadership role in a listed company, in circumstances where her spouse had, through the establishment of trust structures in multiple jurisdictions globally, dissipated marital assets in breach of community property rules. The sons of a successful Indonesian businessman (“P”), in an interconnected series of multi-million-dollar estate and mental capacity disputes between different “camps” in the family within a fractured family dynamic where one of P’s son had sought to take over the family business and side-line P and other family members. Borrowers under a Facility Agreement governed by English law and security documents governed by Indonesian law, facing claims of more than US$ 65 million and a suite of ancillary proceedings including a mareva injunction, prohibitory injunction, anti-suit injunction, emergency arbitration, and a related civil suit for unlawful conspiracy. A global pharmaceutical company in claims for infringement of IP rights and breach of contract, as part of multi-jurisdictional litigation across 10 different countries dealing with novel issues of law and the impact of prior foreign judgments on ongoing proceedings in the national court in Singapore. The marketing agent for Canadian crude oil investments in a cross-border dispute involving S$90 million claims for fraud, misrepresentation and breach of trust, in an innovative representative action brought by more than 1,000 regional investors who assigned their claims to a SGD 1.00 special purpose vehicle.

Publications & Legal Updates

The International Comparative Legal Guide to: Private Client – Singapore Chapter, 2024 Chambers Global Practice Guides, Private Wealth 2023 The Private Wealth & Private Client Law Review (11th Edition) – Singapore Chapter, 2022 Wherefore Family Offices? Singapore Institute of Directors Bulletin 2023 Q1 The Life Sciences Law Review, 10th Edition - Singapore Chapter, 2022 “Importing” Foreign Judgments into Singapore through Transnational Issue Estoppel: An Important Piece in Singapore’s Recognition Regime (Casewatch, 2021) Singapore High Court Dismisses S$90m Fraud Claims in Class Action Brought by More Than 1,000 Investors Who Purchased Crude Oil Investments (Casewatch, 2021)

English

Alvin is an Associate member of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP) Singapore, and the co-chair of the STEP Young Practitioner’s Network. Alvin is listed on the Private Client Global Elite Directory 2024 as a Private Client Global Excellence lawyer. He is a tutor for the Probate and Succession Planning preparatory course for the Singapore bar examinations.

Admitted, Singapore Bar; National University of Singapore (LL.B. Hons)