Member Voices
Sean Yu Chou
WLG Key Contact Partner
WongPartnership (Singapore)
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1. Briefly describe your practice.
I head the Litigation and Dispute Resolution practice at WongPartnership. My main practice areas are banking & trade finance disputes, insolvency & restructuring, corporate fraud, investigations & asset recovery, financial services regulatory, commercial & corporate disputes, shareholder litigation, tort & contractual claims, and domestic & international arbitration. I am a Chartered Arbitrator and would sit as an arbitrator in select cases.
2. As a Key Contact Partner for your firm, what do you hope to gain through WLG participation?
I assumed the KCP role for the firm in 2020, during the pandemic, and the first WLG | summit that I managed to attend was in Atlanta in 2022. WLG clearly provides a significant platform for mutual collaborations and referrals across a fantastic spread of jurisdictions. I have enjoyed the many networking opportunities which were presented, and have since formed several personal friendships with various KCPs.
3. Could you tell us about a recent client, marketing, or other collaboration with another WLG member firm?
I had the pleasure of recently working on an international commercial arbitration matter with my good friend, Tung Ngo from VILAF, relating to a high-value post-M&A dispute. The subject matter was in Vietnam and the seat of the arbitration was in Singapore. My team benefitted very much from our collaboration with Tung and his team, which was seamless.
4. What topics do you look forward to discussing with WLG colleagues practicing dispute resolution?
One particular area that I would like WLG to develop further would be thought leadership in contemporary legal matters, such as investor–state dispute settlement (ISDS). There is a lot that member firms can learn from each other, and the vast resources that all of us have could and should be fully harnessed.
5. What do you enjoy doing in your spare time?
I am an avid golfer (but a poor one, skill-wise). I have tremendously enjoyed the WLG golf games, organized just before the summits. I look forward to participating in more editions of the President's Challenge (a Ryder Cup-style competition started by Scott Guan and Per Lidman). Another area of interest is wine. In a parallel universe, I suspect I would probably be running a wine bar in the heart of the Champagne region.
6. Singapore has a vibrant food scene– what would be your best recommendation?
Singapore is a melting pot of many different cultures and therefore offers an excellent spread of Asian cuisines – Malay, Indian, Chinese, and Eurasian. We have one of the best street food offerings in the world. In December 2020, Singapore's street food hawker culture was added to UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Heritage of Humanity. We also have a very unique cuisine called Peranakan, which is a blend of cuisine developed from Malay-Chinese inter-marriages. If there is only one restaurant that any WLG colleague can visit in Singapore, it would have to be Candlenut, a one-star Michelin Peranakan restaurant.