Independent Consultant
David Yeow
With over 30 years’ experience in advising on securities and financial markets regulation, compliance, and disputes, and until recently, a Senior Partner of South East Asia’s largest legal services provider, David is a well-recognised doyen in these fields.
On the financial services front, David has acted on multiple cross-border mandates involving distress situations arising upon the onset of every major financial crisis in the last three decades. He was counsel to the then Singapore International Monetary Exchange (SMX) (and subsequently the Singapore Exchange Derivatives Trading Limited) and its clearing entity, in dealing with the fall outs from the aberrant Nikkei Index Crash in the late 1980s, the Baring’s debacle in the mid-1990s, and the more recent collapse of the Lehman Brothers and Refco Group. His expertise in financial markets has also seen him advise the Rubber Association of Singapore in its privatization exercise and its consequential conversion to the SICOM, as well as the SGX-DT in both its demutualization exercise and the hiving off of its clearing house. He was also counsel to SMX in its structuring and setting up of Singapore’s second commodities exchange.
In the wake of the global financial crisis and defaults across complex mortgage-backed structured products in 2009, he was counsel to all 6 of the local securities brokerages, both to deal with its fall-out, and to advise them on prospective regulatory compliance. David was also a key member of the team that successfully resisted a representative action brought by ‘Minibond’ investors against various entities of Lehman Brothers and its directors, as well as the team that acted for the liquidators of MF Global Singapore including advising on complex issues relating to the close-out and netting of financial transactions, and segregated customer money claims.
In the late 2010s, David lent his expertise and experience as an independent member of the board of the Noble Group, a major global commodities firm listed on the Singapore Exchange, overseeing the successful restructuring its US$3.5 billion debt which primarily involved a debt-equity swap.
More recently, David has been engaged to provide structural and compliance advice to businesses seeking entry into or leveraging on developments in technology, and the virtual and meta-verse space including asset tokenisation (both real (e.g. real estate) and legal (e.g. carbon credits), blockchain platforms and market-places; payment systems (e.g. buy now lay buy conversion systems); cyber-security (including working with JYVSECTEC of Finland and Sovereign Cyber Collective of Australia).


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With over 30 years’ experience in advising on securities and financial markets regulation, compliance, and disputes, and until recently, a Senior Partner of South East Asia’s largest legal services provider, David is a well-recognised doyen in these fields.