CHP Law

Singapore

Review

Dispute resolution

The dispute resolution group at CHP Law is known for its broad litigation and arbitration practice spanning commercial, insolvency, employment, and financial crime mattersFounded in 2018 by litigation veterans from established firms, CHP has quickly made a name as a conflicts-free firm delivering big-firm expertise with a boutique’s agility. The firm’s litigation team, now composed of three dispute resolution directors and a growing cadre of associates, has deep experience in high-value, complex cases across diverse sectorsincluding financial fraud, insolvency, employment, intellectual property, technology, construction, and white-collar crime.  

Key individuals anchoring CHP’s disputes practice include Danny Quah, the firm’s head of litigation and arbitration. He leads many of the firm’s headline matters, from high-value commercial suits to cutting-edge crypto-related cases. He joined the firm in 2023 after working at TSMP and Providence Law. He has since been instrumental in building a formidable disputes team, noted for taking on complex cases usually reserved for far larger firms. At the helm of the firm, managing director Christopher Huang and regulatory head Raj Mannar provide oversight and specialist support, ensuring clients benefit from cross-disciplinary insights. Under this leadership, the firm has assembled a cohesive unit of around 26 lawyers, including senior practitioners like IP and tech disputes partner Dixon Soh and private client specialist Kannan Nadarajan to handle the most challenging cases with a holistic approach 

Last year, CHP significantly bolstered its bench with key lateral hires: Director Ang Ann Liang joined from Wong Tan & Molly Limand Chong Yi Mei from Tito Isaac & Co, where he was formerly the co-managing partner. They brought with them broad commercial litigation practices and niche expertise in employment, construction and criminal matters. These additionsalong with younger recruits from other local firmsnearly doubled CHP’s size. 

Complex commercial disputes and insolvency cases constitute a significant portion of CHP’s workload. The firm is regularly engaged in high-stakes, cross-border litigation and restructuring matters, where it often opposes leading law firms. One headline example is the firm’s ongoing representation of Hong Kong–listed Link Holdings in a distressed, hostile takeover of a boutique hotel in Singapore. This multifaceted mandate involves two concurrent High Court lawsuits and a District Court action, as well as related disputes in Japan, Indonesia and Hong Kong, reflecting the matter’s international reach. CHP’s team successfully fended off attempts by the hotel’s previous management to derail the takeover. They have so far prevented adverse interim orders and ensured the client’s control over the asset pending the disputes’ final resolution.  

Another significant matter saw the team defend a key shareholder in a rare parallel scheme of arrangement unfolding in both Singapore and Malaysia. The case, which involves a multi-million-dollar restructuring of a major Malaysian-owned group, required the CHP lawyers to work in tandem with local counsel to manage concurrent court processes in the two countries. The team’s efforts resulted in important conditions being imposed on the Singapore moratoriumincluding enhanced financial transparency and safeguards against asset dissipation. The ensured protection of their client’s interests while the restructuring proceeds 

Employment and labour disputes are another stronghold for CHP, particularly those involving senior executives or novel legal issues. The firm’s employment disputes practice, co-led by Anghandles cases ranging from high-value bonus and compensation claims to enforcement of non-compete clauses and workplace misconduct matters. For example, the team recently successfully represented a hospitality group in defending a former general manager’s multi-pronged claim for a substantial “discretionary” bonus and other benefits. The disputewhich included parallel proceedings in the Employment Claims Tribunal and the High Court, raised complex issues about the enforceability of oral agreements on bonus compensation and the interplay between separate legal forums for employment claims. The CHP lawyers mounted a robust defence that not only contested the employee’s entitlement to the bonus, but also advanced a counterclaim to recover nearly S$400,000 in overpaid salaries and unauthorized benefits based on alleged breaches of fiduciary duty. By meticulously combing through the company’s internal records and surfacing evidence of dubious transactions, the firm was able to turn the tables and put the former employee on the defensive. The proceedings resulted in the employee dropping a portion of the claims and agreeing to conditions favouring the firm’s clients as the case moved forward.  

In the realm of restructuring and insolvency, CHP has quickly gained recognition for innovative strategies and precedent-setting casework. Led by Director Danny Quah, the firm’s R&I team combines litigation prowess with financial savvy to tackle complex corporate collapses and insolvency workouts. Over the past year, the firm has been deeply involved in the aftermath of Singapore’s most publicized cryptocurrency failures. It is advising the co-founders of the ill-fated Hodlnaut crypto platform in an array of Singapore and Hong Kong proceedings following its 2022 collapse, working to secure judicial management protection, contest asset-freezing orders, and facilitate a potential sale of the business (client details confidential). In the course of this work, CHP’s lawyers have obtained three separate High Court decisions, including novel rulings on whether cryptocurrency liabilities constitute “debts” under insolvency law and how to resolve competing proposals for interim judicial management. Another representative engagement is the firm’s ongoing role in the cross-border restructuring of WazirX, India’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, which suffered a hack in 2024. CHP represented the two biggest creditors and several others in opposing certain aspects of WazirX’s Singapore scheme of arrangement and related Indian proceedings, and it succeeded in carving out a special S$20 million fund to separately protect its clients’ claims in the rescue plan. This was achieved by resisting an initial broad moratorium and pushing for strict conditions on WazirX’s restructuring, an approach lauded as protecting creditor rights in a jurisdiction where retail investors’ voices are rarely heard in court.  

Yi Mei Chong 

My lawyer was very professional, reliable, and genuinely caring. She took the time to explain each step clearly and provides practical advice that made complex issues easy to understand.”- Construction 

Danny Quah 

He is able to solve complex problems.”