Yin Soon Yap

Practice Areas

International Arbitration; Litigation; Maritime & Aviation

Career

Yin Soon is the Co-Head of the Maritime & Aviation Practice Group. His expertise is in the maritime, offshore and aviation sectors and in international trade and trade finance disputes. He is a seasoned practitioner and is often called upon by clients to handle high value, complex and cross-border cases. He has extensive experience handling disputes involving collisions, casualties, oil pollution incidents and claims, maritime related investigations, salvage, wreck removal, charter parties, contracts of affreightment, bills of lading, bunker trades, mortgages, lease agreements (including sale and leaseback), sale and purchase agreements, construction, conversion and repair projects, oil and gas projects, ownership and possessory rights over ships, aircraft and cargo and loss, damage and detention to the same, international trade, restructuring and insolvency issues in the maritime, offshore and international trade sectors.

Cases which Yin Soon has been involved in recently include a number of very high value and complex disputes such as the oil spill incident in Singapore involving the “VOX MAXIMA” and the “MARINE HONOUR” in June 2024, the sinking of the STAR CENTURION in 2019 after a collision, advising the Informal Steering Committee of Lenders on all the shipping claims and operational aspects in the US$1.34 billion restructuring of PIL and acting for two leading banks (DBS and Natixis) in the myriad of litigation cases which arose and are still ongoing in the Singapore Courts from the US$3.85 billion collapse of the Hin Leong Trading group in 2020. His clients include lenders and financiers in the shipping and commodities sectors, ship owners, charterers, P&I Clubs, H&M insurers, underwriters (liability claims), shipyards, oil majors and international commodity trading houses.

Professional Memberships

Yin Soon is on the Maritime Panel of Associate Mediators, Singapore Mediation Centre.

Languages Spoken

English; Mandarin