Singapore – MAS Proposes Harmonised Class Exemption For Single Family Offices.

Eric Chan – Partner, Shook Lin & Bok
eric.chan@shooklin.com

Practice Area(s):

Banking & Finance
Environmental, Social and Governance
Financial Services Regulatory

Qualifications / Education:

Advocate & Solicitor, Singapore, 1993
LLM, University College of London, 1998
LLB (Hons), National University of Singapore, 1992

Eric Chan heads the financial services regulation practice. His work includes advising and helping banks and other financial institutions to understand and comply with Singapore financial regulatory rules and regulations. He works with financial institutions new to the Singapore market in helping them secure the requisite approvals, authorisations or exemptions, as well as existing financial institutions in relation to ongoing compliance issues. Eric’s work covers the full spectrum of the financial services sector in Singapore, and he works regularly with banks, financial advisers, insurers and insurance brokers, fund managers, securities brokers and other intermediaries.

Eric is also extensively involved in advising various financial institutions as well as corporate clients on privacy and personal data protection, as well as anti-bribery controls.

Eric started private practice doing general commercial and corporate litigation. He later joined the Monetary Authority of Singapore as in-house counsel, where he provided legal support and advice on various regulatory initiatives. During this time, Eric also concurrently taught banking law as an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the National University of Singapore. In 2003, Eric was seconded from the Monetary Authority of Singapore to the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, as a research fellow where he wrote a paper on payment systems law. After his stint, he rejoined the Monetary Authority of Singapore MAS as Head of International & Regional Relations where he led a policy team working on international central banking issues, including implementation of various international regulatory standards within Singapore. In 2006, Eric joined American Express Bank and served as the Regional Director for Compliance & Ethics responsible for compliance matters across the Asia-Pacific region. Eric returned to legal practice in 2008 and was until 2014, a director in another leading Singapore law firm where he had helped to set up and lead their financial services regulation practice.

Eric is a member of the Singapore Institute of Directors.

Matter Experience

Some of the transactions in which he was involved include:

• Acted for Long Bridge Securities Pte Ltd in obtaining a Capital Markets Services Licence for dealing in capital markets products (2022);
• Acted for SIX SIS Ltd in their application to the MAS for exemptions under the Securities and Futures Act in order to conduct business activity from Singapore (2022);
• Acted for Sunrate in their application for a major payment institution licence under the Payment Services Act (2021);
• Advising Indonesia ride-hailing firm Go-Jek on legal and regulatory issues in connection with their setting up of operations in Singapore (2019);
• Assisting Long Asia Capital Pte Ltd in obtaining a Capital Markets Services licence for dealing in Capital Markets Products (2017/2018);
• Assisting Copper Basin Capital Pte Ltd in obtaining a Capital Markets Services licence for fund management (2016/2017);
• Assisting Zhongtai International Securities (Singapore) Pte Ltd in obtaining a Capital Markets Services licence for dealing in securities (2016);
• Assisting CurrencyFair (Singapore) Pte Ltd in obtaining a remittance licence under the Money-changing and Remittance Businesses Act (2016);
• Assisting Cenkos Securities Plc in obtaining a Capital Markets Services Licence for its subsidiary in Singapore (2015/2016);
• Assisting GCA Savvian Singapore Pte Ltd to obtain Exempt Corporate Finance Adviser status in Singapore (2015/2016);
• Advising Allgrace Investment Management Pte Ltd on regulatory issues relating to its acquisition of Singapore Consortium Investment Management Ltd (2015); and
• Supporting and advising a foreign bank in Singapore in internal investigations as to the role of its staff in the rigging of the Singapore Interbank Offer Rate and the Swap Offer Rate (2012/2013).

Publications and Events

Eric is a contributing author of the Handbook on Financial Services Law and Regulation, published in 2019 by the Singapore Academy of Law. He is also a co-author of the Singapore chapter of Lexology-Getting the Deal Through’s Guide to Anti-Money Laundering since 2016. In 2018, he wrote the Singapore chapter of Private Funds: Where and How?, a book published by Dechert LLP in collaboration with Bloomsbury Professional Ltd. In 2002, he was also the contributing author to the inaugural edition of Volume 12 of Halsbury’s Laws of Singapore (on Banking and Finance).

Eric continues to write on a variety of issues relating to financial services regulation and privacy in Singapore, and regularly participates at seminars and conferences and provides training on these subjects.

Accolades

The Financial Services Regulation team which Eric leads is now ranked in The Legal 500.

Asialaw Profiles 2019 noted a client who described him as one who is “very pragmatic and willing to state a position that’s in the client’s interest, even if it may not be music to regulator’s ear.”

In 2020, Thomson Reuters noted that one bank client had described him as being “like a walking regulatory dictionary”.

Eric is also a Lexology Client Choice Award 2020 and 2021 Winner for Banking in Singapore.

Eric has been featured as a Recommended Lawyer in every successive edition of Who’s Who Legal for Banking – Regulatory since 2017. In 2022, he was ranked by Who’s Who Legal as a Global Leader for Banking – Regulatory and as a National Leader (Southeast Asia) for Banking.

In 2022, Eric was also named as a Thomson Reuters Stand-out Lawyer.