Stephen Chan

Stephen’s main area of practice is in commercial litigation and arbitration. He has over 15 years’ of experience handling multi-jurisdictional fraud and asset tracing involving freezing, gagging and other urgent interim injunctive measures. He is also well versed in technology-related disputes (including matters involving cryptocurrency and virtual assets), shareholder and company disputes, and contentious employment matters. 

In addition, Stephen has strong capabilities in international arbitration work arising from a broad range of commercial disputes across a range of sectors including private wealth, financial services and technology. He has experience in most of the world’s leading arbitral seats (including London, Hong Kong and Singapore) as well as under the rules of key arbitral institutions (including HKIAC, SIAC, ICC and UNCITRAL rules). Stephen is a committee member of the Law Society of Hong Kong’s Arbitration Committee.

Stephen speaks fluent English, Cantonese and Mandarin. He is admitted to practise in Hong Kong, and is qualified as a barrister and solicitor of the High Court of New Zealand.

• Represented liquidators against directors of a Hong Kong publicly listed company claiming breach of fiduciary obligations and director’s duties and damages of over HK$100 million.
• Represented shareholders in a statutory derivative action alleging unlawful conspiracy by directors to injure a Hong Kong company claiming damages of over US$40 million.
• Represented a Hong Kong publicly listed company in High Court proceedings for a permanent injunction in order to prevent a defendant from using its registered company name and registered domain name.
• Represented a large New York-Listed pharmaceutical company in an HKIAC arbitration in Hong Kong against a manufacturing site in China. The dispute arose in connection with a sellers’ warranties to produce animal vaccines.
• Represented a multinational India-listed tech company in a SIAC arbitration in Singapore against a well-known telecommunications, mobile and broadband provider in Hong Kong. The dispute arose in connection with a telecommunications and digital transformation project.
• Represented a well-known brand in Hong Kong in an ICC international arbitration against various parties in Hong Kong, Malaysia and Korea. The US$20 million disputes arose out of the breach of licensing agreements and claim of damages.
• Acted for and advised victims of cryptocurrency fraud and scams, asset tracing, freezing and court ordered disclosure of KYC/AML documents of customers.
• Advised a well-known Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange on the virtual asset service provider (VASP) opt-in licensing regime operated by the Hong Kong SFC.
• Successful claim for discretionary bonus and establishment of the implied term of anti-avoidance in Hong Kong (HCA 322/2008 and CACV 12/2015).
• Represented former employees and Hong Kong based companies in Springboard injunction proceedings in connection to post-termination restrictions.