Counsel Take Exception To Horizon Towers Report

Source : The Straits Times, Oct 10, 2007

WE REFER to the article, 'The Horizon Towers show' (The Sunday Times, Oct 7).
We will highlight two points. First, it is suggested in the article that Mr Michael Hwang left Allen & Gledhill at the end of 2002 because the firm was not big enough for both him and Mr K. Shanmugam.

This is quite untrue. Mr Hwang left because he was one year from retirement age and wanted to concentrate on being an arbitrator. That was difficult to do in a large firm like Allen & Gledhill with a very large client base.

Mr Hwang, as a partner of Allen & Gledhill, had to decline many arbitration appointments that he was approached for, because one or the other party to the arbitration often had some connection to Allen & Gledhill and it was therefore perceived that there would be a conflict of interest. Had he wanted to compete with Mr Shanmugam (or Allen & Gledhill), he would have accepted one of the several offers that he had received from other law firms when it was known that he was leaving Allen & Gledhill. Instead, he set up his own boutique law practice, concentrating on arbitration practice, and enjoys a good relationship with Allen & Gledhill (including Mr Shanmugam), which sublet part of its own office space to him. He and Mr Shanmugam also continue to consult each other on professional matters.

We are sorry that your writer had not contacted either Mr Hwang or Mr Shanmugam to verify the facts.

The second point that we will highlight is that the thrust of the article was that personal relationships motivated the remarks made in court. Your writer focused on the relationships between Mr Shanmugam and Messrs K. S. Rajah and Hwang. That suggestion is quite inaccurate and should never have been made. The remarks were in the nature of banter, no more and no less than the banter which passes between counsel in many cases. It was not unique to the Horizon Towers case, whereas the article gives that misleading impression.

That misleading impression was then made worse by the suggestion that personal relationships prompted the remarks. Neither we nor any of the other counsel involved were so unprofessional as to allow our personal relationships to affect what we said in court on behalf of our clients.

K. S. Rajah
Michael Hwang
K. Shanmugam
Senior Counsel

Editor's note: We stand corrected.