Chee Hian Kwah
Chee Hian is a Director in Prolegis LLC and the Head of FSR, Singapore for the Herbert Smith Freehills Prolegis Formal Law Alliance.
Chee Hian specialises in financial service regulations and advises on both contentious and non-contentious matters in the financial services regulatory space.
He advises financial institution clients across a broad range of issues, such as licensing applications, structuring of regulated business, business conduct rules, product offering rules and anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing compliance.
He has also assisted financial institutions with internal investigations and regulatory enquiries of senior employee misconduct, breaches of anti-money laundering regulations, and failures to comply with ongoing business conduct requirements.
In particular, Chee Hian has extensive experience advising clients on Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) licence applications, such as licences for capital markets services, financial advisers and major payment institutions (including applications to provide digital payment token services).
Chee Hian also works closely with industry bodies such as Asia Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (ASIFMA) and Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA) on financial services reform and developments. He has also spent some time on secondment with an international bank in Singapore, and assisted the bank with its regulatory requirement to locally incorporate its Singapore retail operations.
Background
Read more about Herbert Smith Freehills Prolegis here.
Chee Hian graduated with a bachelor's degree in law from the National University of Singapore, where he was awarded the Lo Hwei Yen Memorial Scholarship. He is bilingual in English and Chinese and is admitted to practice law in Singapore.
Experience & expertise
Selected matters
- a Big Tech company on the launch of its payments business in Singapore and the application of new payments regulations to its business lines
- an international fund manager on the marketing and offering of its collective investment schemes, investment management and advisory services into Asia
- the private wealth unit of an international bank on the structuring of its cross-border business offerings based on the Securities and Futures (Exemption for Cross-Border Arrangements) Regulations
- acted successfully for various financial institutions in obtaining a range of financial licences from MAS
- an international bank on a multi-jurisdictional investigation into alleged breaches of anti-money laundering and 'know your client' requirements
- The Earthshot Prize on the launch of a platform that seeks to connect funders with Earthshot finalists and winners to support them with their funding needs and growth (The Earthshot Prize Launchpad)
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