The Asian Business Law Institute/III Asian Principles of Global Restructuring Project
Channel: Cambridge Law Faculty
Date: 2021-02-02

Chair: Professor Louise Gullifer

Speaker: Justice Kannan Ramesh (High Court, Singapore)

Comment: Mr Sushil Nair (Deputy CEO, Drew & Napier, Singapore)

This is an exciting opportunity to hear one of the chief architects of this innovative project explaining its purpose and its progress so far, with a comment from a leading Singaporean practitioner. For more details about the project, the website.

This is a joint 3CL-Singapore Global Restructuring Initiative (SGRI) seminar. Its director, Dr. Aurelio Gurrea Martinez will explain a little about this initiative in the course of the seminar.

The Asian Principles for Business Restructuring project ("Project") jointly undertaken by the Asian Business Law Institute ("ABLI") and the International Insolvency Institute ("III") studies the corporate restructuring and insolvency regimes in 16 Asia-Pacific jurisdictions, including all ten ASEAN member states, as well as Australia, China, Hong Kong SAR, India, Japan and South Korea.

The Project is in two phases, with Phase 1 involving the mapping of the insolvency regimes of the 16 jurisdictions. The publication of an 860-page compendium titled “Corporate Restructuring and Insolvency in Asia” in April 2020 marks the conclusion of this phase and lays the foundation for Phase 2. Phase 2 aims is to produce "principles" or best practice guides that will guide both in-court and out-of-court restructurings in Asia.

The prospect of multi-jurisdictional workouts in Asia is on the rise given the growing number of businesses operating across borders. The patchwork of restructuring and insolvency rules in Asia causes fragmentation and increases the risk of jurisdictional arbitrage. This stands in the way of the continent attracting investments. It is hoped that the “principles” will be an important step in the journey towards convergence of philosophies and approach to resolution of insolvencies in Asia.

Justice Kannan Ramesh
Justice Kannan Ramesh was appointed Judicial Commissioner in May 2015, and Judge of the High Court in April 2017. He was also appointed as a Judicial Commissioner of the Supreme Court of Brunei Darussalam (“SCBD”) on a part-time basis on 7 October 2019 where he hears both commercial and civil cases in SCBD.  He received his Bachelor of Laws (Honours) from the National University of Singapore in 1990. He was then admitted as an Advocate and Solicitor in Singapore in 1991, and appointed Senior Counsel in 2012.  Before his appointment as Judicial Commissioner, Justice Ramesh was Managing Partner of Messrs Tan Kok Quan Partnership from 2008, where he specialised in dispute resolution, insolvency and restructuring, and international arbitration.   He was also appointed as Board Member of the Singapore Aerospace Manufacturing Pte Ltd and M1 Limited. In the former, he had an added role as Executive Committee Member, while in the latter, he was Chairman of M1’s Risk Committee, as well as Member of their Nominating and Audit Committees.  He is a member of Singapore Academy of Law’s Law Reform Committee, and Vice President of New York’s International Insolvency Institute (III) Executive Committee and part of III’s Arbitration and Conciliation working group. He was instrumental in establishing the Judicial Insolvency Network (JIN) which issued in October 2016, guidelines for court-to-court communications and cooperation in cross-border insolvencies.   Justice Ramesh wrote Getting the Deal Through – Restructuring and Insolvency in 51 Jurisdictions Worldwide in 2010. He also authored the Singapore Chapter of the World Bank publication, Doing Business – Closing a Business Survey, published in 2009, 2010 and 2011.

Sushil Nair
Named Singapore’s Restructuring Lawyer of the Year for 2019 by Best Lawyers, Sushil is the Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Drew & Napier and also heads up its Corporate Restructuring & Workout practice group. Sushil has been in practice for some 30 years, with the majority of that time focused on restructuring. Sushil’s practice is focused on the Asia Pacific region, with much of it revolving around Indonesia and China, where he has been involved in some of the largest restructuring exercises in Asia. Sushil chairs the Insolvency Sub Committee of the Law Society of Singapore and has been appointed a member to a number of government committees involved in the development of the law relating to insolvency and restructuring in Singapore. Sushil also sits on the boards of the Singapore Accountancy Commission and Sports Singapore and is a member of the Fund Committee of the KK Hospital Health Fund.

For more information see: https://www.3cl.law.cam.ac.uk/centre-activities