Joy Tan Compliance & Investigations Group Co-Chair
Member Voices
| Joy Tan WLG Compliance & Investigations Group Co-chair |
1. Describe your practice
I co-head WongPartnership LLP’s Corporate Governance & Compliance Practice, which advises directors, board committees and management on their duties and responsibilities under Singapore law, and on corporate governance best practices and strategies. We act for corporate and financial institutions in a range of governance matters, as well as in other contentious matters involving listed and regulated corporations, their officers and their minority shareholders. Our practice is at the forefront of complex regulatory cases, representing clients before the Singapore regulators in high-profile actions in relation to governance and market conduct matters.
I also lead our full-service investigations practice, which has extensive experience in government-led and internal investigations into corporate fraud, civil and regulatory misconduct, and represents corporate and individual defendants in the gamut of enforcement actions and regulatory prosecutions. We advise across all major industry sectors in Singapore and have been consistently ranked by the Global Investigations Review as one of the Top 100 Firms in the world for corporate investigations since its inaugural edition in 2017.
2. You're a practice group leader for Compliance & Investigations. Tell us something valuable you've gained or hope to gain from this group.
As business structures, practices and procedures come under the unprecedented pressures of COVID, and businesses as well as business crime grow increasingly international, we are seeing a clear increase in complex cross-border issues in governance, compliance and investigations. This is coupled with an increasingly collaborative enforcement approach between domestic regulators. WLG members have identified and sought to capitalize on this growing client need by inaugurating the WLG Compliance & Investigations group. In the coming months, I see many opportunities for the network’s members in this as well as adjacent practice areas, e.g. in white collar crime.
3. When travel opens up for you again, where do you plan to travel first?
Singapore has recently opened up Vaccinated Travel Lanes (VTL) to a variety of countries across the world, and I’m looking forward to being able to travel again for both work and leisure. Before the lockdown, we spent December in the US visiting colleges with our pre-college-aged son, and I’m hoping to secure a VTL flight Stateside when we can.
4. Have you collaborated on any client or marketing matters with other WLG member firms?
I’ve had the pleasure of collaborating with member firms from Argentina and the US this year, in both marketing exploration as well as professional work.
I’m also delighted that the practice group leaders in the Americas, Europe and Asia have come together to organize a series of seminars in this last quarter, which will draw together participants from the member firms in each region, focusing on compliance topics of mutual interest. The Asia-Pacific seminar will be held on December 6, and will bring together experts from member firms in Australia, China, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, as well as Singapore. We will discuss the legal positions in our different jurisdictions relating to the structuring of internal investigations, the existence of legal professional privilege over investigation materials, and reporting obligations. We hope the event will garner support from clients as well as other interested WLG firms.