Jonathan Tang Yuan
Jonathan is a Director in Prolegis LLC and the Head of Restructuring, Turnaround & Insolvency for the Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer Prolegis Formal Law Alliance.
Jonathan's practice focuses primarily on contentious restructuring, insolvency, and workouts, including disputes and claims in a bankruptcy and insolvency context. Jonathan regularly advises and represents creditors, insolvency professionals, and debtor companies in bankruptcy, judicial management, scheme of arrangement, and winding up proceedings before the Singapore High Court.
On the creditor side, Jonathan has a proven track record of success in obtaining value recovery for his clients. Significant recent cases include obtaining favourable recoveries in bankruptcy and winding up proceedings against various debtors and managing cross-border liquidations and insolvencies in the Cayman Islands, the BVI, Hong Kong, and in Singapore.
Jonathan also has notable experience in obtaining orders for moratoria, scheme of arrangement, and super-priority rescue financing orders over a wide range of companies and sectors. This includes acting as lead counsel and arguing before the Singapore Court in debtor-led restructurings of publicly listed companies, crypto companies, F&B staples, and real estate management companies. He is a mainstay in the rescue financing scene, having been lead counsel in many of Singapore's successful rescue-financing schemes of arrangement. The team's representation of the Zipmex entities in the cross-border Zipmex group restructuring resulted in being honoured with the prestigious Editor's Choice Awards 2024 – Impact Deal and Case of the Year by asialaw.
Client and peer accolades across legal directories recognize "he is a well-rounded counsel with good commercial acumen and a strong sense of responsibility to his clients" while praising his "thoughtful, outside-the-box solutions and unique insights into a matter". asialaw also cites that he is "very approachable and willing to assist". Jonathan is recognised in Chambers and Partners' Asia Pacific Guide 2025 as an "Up and Coming" rising star in the domestic Restructuring / Insolvency category. The Prolegis practice which he leads is ranked in various legal directories including asialaw, Legal500, and Benchmark Litigation.
Jonathan is qualified in Singapore and is an Advocate and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Singapore. He is also a fellow of the Insolvency Practitioners' Association of Singapore, and a member of INSOL International.
For more reference, please see our HSF Kramer website - Jonathan Tang Yuan | Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer | Global law firm
Experience & capabilities
Selected matters
Restructuring, Insolvency, and Deals
- Counsel for the Zipmex Group in its Singapore-led restructuring and scheme of arrangement proceedings;
- Counsel for the No Signboard Group (n.k.a the Bromat group) in its restructuring and scheme of arrangement proceedings;
- Counsel for the investor in Asiatravel's scheme of arrangement proceedings. This was the first successful super-priority application in Singapore;
- Counsel for Charisma Energy Services Ltd in its restructuring and scheme of arrangement proceedings;
- Counsel for Alpha Dx Group Limited in its restructuring and pre-packaged scheme of arrangement proceedings;
- Counsel for creditors in the liquidation and/or restructurings of Three Arrows Capital, Babel Finance Group, and FTX;
- Counsel for the Genesis Global Holdco LLC's recognition of its USD 9.3 billion Chapter 11 restructuring in Singapore;
- Counsel for the liquidators of a Hong Kong company in its recognition proceedings in Singapore;
- Counsel for creditors of a Cayman Islands liquidated company in resisting the liquidators' recognition proceedings in Singapore;
- Singapore-based counsel advising on Singapore law elements of a major and recent Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing;
- Singapore-based counsel for 4 individual debtors of the FTX group based in Singapore in defending clawback claims made against them. The total value of the claim against the clawback debtors exceeded USD 950 million;
- Counsel for an individual debtor in defending various bankruptcy and insolvency-related proceedings brought against him by creditors;
- Counsel for a major payment institution in Singapore in enforcing its debt against a crypto services provider, concerning a USD 16m loss from a hack;
- Counsel advising shareholders in their rights of recovery arising from the failure of a well-known unicorn startup in South-East Asia;
- Counsel for the liquidators in a dispute against a royal figure in Malaysia;
- Lead corporate counsel in the sale of shares by the majority shareholders of a listed healthcare company for SGD 67 million;
- Lead corporate counsel in the sale of shares of the majority shareholders of a well-known bakery and coffee franchise;
- Advising clients on non-contentious restructuring of their businesses, debts, and liabilities.
Litigation, and International Arbitration deals
- Counsel for the creditors in bankruptcy and winding up proceedings against a debtor company and its founders;
- Counsel for creditors of an investment fund in negotiating pre-packaged schemes of arrangement entered into between them and its judicial managers;
- Counsel for shareholder-creditors in bankruptcy proceedings against a well-known AI conglomerate;
- Counsel for a significant state-owned petroleum corporation in winding up proceedings in the BVI relating to a failed drilling venture;
- Counsel for creditors of a Cayman-based fund in official liquidation in the Cayman Islands;
- Singapore-based counsel for an ASX listed company, on fraud tracing, recovery, and insolvency actions against debtors in Malaysia and Singapore;
- Counsel for various parties in minority oppression and shareholder disputes in both the Singapore Courts and in arbitration proceedings before the SIAC, including an emergency arbitration commenced by the shareholder;
- Counsel for a well known insurance magnate in a SGD 2.5 bn claim for breach of contract and non-solicitation clauses against him;
- Counsel for the successful court-ordered capital reduction exercise in Singapore;
- Singapore-based counsel for the parties in various Texas and New York litigation proceedings, leading depositions and applications in Singapore in aid of these foreign proceedings;
- Singapore-based counsel for various parties in HKIAC proceedings;
- Counsel for a global digital finance group and its subsidiaries in claims and injunctive relief sought against them in the Singapore High Court.
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