The Global Financial Crisis (GFC) has had a dramatic impact on global business. Numerous global financial players have suffered unprecedented losses, the capital base of many has been significantly eroded and governments are exerting influence on many institutions, the like of which has not been seen since the 1970’s. Financial institutions are being nationalised or bailed out with government money and Central Banks are severely tightening their banking regulations.

Though these are challenging times, members of our Banking team lived and worked in Asia during the Asian financial crisis of 1997/98 and from this experience have acquired first hand, an understanding of the issues that now confront the sector in the aftermath of the GFC. We understand their risk appetite and how that impacts on the market terms for lending.

DLA Piper’s Banking team in Asia has advised numerous players in the finance sector from regional and local financial institutions, multilateral organisations and global banking giants. Our team in Asia works closely with our Group Firm DLA Phillips Fox in Australia and New Zealand as an integrated unit across Asia Pacific. Team members are qualified to practice in a number of jurisdictions and between them are fluent in English, Cantonese, Mandarin, Bahasa Indonesia, Vietnamese, Japanese and Thai.

The depth of our expertise also lies in our ability to coordinate with our banking and finance teams across DLA Piper’s global network. We provide an integrated team of practitioners across Asia, the US, Europe and the Middle East who deliver seamless advice on complex cross-border or multi jurisdictional financings. We monitor the world’s leading financial centres and trade developments in those markets and pool our knowledge and experiences of deals in each region to identify trends as well as analyse the risk appetite amongst the borrower and lending worlds from time to time. Simply adhering to precedent and examples of deals in other markets is not the way forward yet it is helpful to appreciate how issues have been addressed in similar deals and it can help resolve impasses between borrowers and lenders. Our knowledge of the markets in which we operate and our experience and understanding in particular of the changed (and changing) regulatory and commercial lending environment means that our advice can make a real difference to our clients in a timely way.

Our services include:

• Acquisition financing
• Asset-backed securities
• Asset-based financing
• Banking regulation and compliance
• Debt and equity capital markets (including convertibles, bonds with warrants, exchangeables)
• Debt restructuring and insolvency
• Export-credit financing
• International investment funds
• Mainstream and cross-border banking work (corporate lending, secured and unsecured)
• MTN programmes and repackaging
• Project financing
• Real estate financing
• Structured finance and securitisations
• Trade financing (pre-payment structures, and vendor financing focusing on the resources sector)

In Singapore, we are restricted for regulatory reasons (as are all international/foreign registered law firms) from practising local law. This means that if a matter needs advice on any Singapore law issues we will arrange for this advice to be provided and issued by a separate local law firm.