Reina Chua

REINA CHUA’s practice focuses on financial services regulatory advice. Reina regularly advises global investment managers on the establishment of business operations in Singapore, including the licensing of fund management companies. She also advises on cross-border marketing of regulated services and products as well as handles registration of both domestic and offshore funds for offers to accredited or retail investors.

Reina has significant experience counseling clients on payment and fintech regulatory matters. She represents both established international corporations and start-up firms in assessing financial services licensing and other compliance obligations relating to digital payment tokens, e-money, electronic wallets, merchant acquiring services, remittance business, and payment system networks.

Reina’s experience includes advising on personal data protection and privacy matters, anti-money laundering requirements, market misconduct prevention rules, outsourcing requirements, change in control approvals, derivatives reporting issues, personnel and employment matters, as well as customer asset protection rules. 

Selected recent experience includes:

Hedge Fund Managers

• Advising Alphadyne Asset Management, Verition Fund Management, and Avenue Capital Group on the establishment of their Singapore offices.
• Advising Farallon Capital Management and King Street Capital Management, two U.S.-headquartered investment managers, on their regulatory compliance obligations in Singapore as licensed fund management companies.
• Advising offshore hedge fund managers on the regulatory regime for marketing and registration of funds.
• Conducting annual training for Singapore employees of a global hedge fund manager on the prevention of market misconduct and insider trading.
• Advising a global alternative asset manager on the anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism rules as applicable to its Singapore office.

Private Equity and Real Estate Managers

• Acting as Singapore counsel to EQT AB (STO: EQT) on its S$7.5 billion agreement to acquire Baring Private Equity Asia (BPEA), a leading private markets investment firm in Asia with US$19.5 billion of assets under management.
• Acting as Singapore counsel to EQT AB (STO: EQT) on the launch of O2 Power, a renewable energy platform in India, which was jointly established with Singapore sovereign wealth fund Temasek.
• Acting as Singapore counsel to DigitalBridge Investment Management, a leading global digital infrastructure investment firm, in launching Xenith Infrastructure Group, a fiber platform serving hyperscalers, data center operators, carriers, and enterprises in the Asia-Pacific region, which was jointly founded with Columbia Capital.
• Advising Investcorp, a leading provider and manager of alternative investment products founded in Bahrain, on its Asia-Pacific expansion plans.

Retail Fund Managers

• Providing Singapore regulatory advice to AllianceBernstein (NYSE: AB) on its US$750 million acquisition of CarVal Investors, a global private alternatives investment manager.
• Acting as Singapore regulatory counsel to PIMCO LLC, a U.S.-headquartered investment manager with US$1.82 trillion assets under management as of June 30, 2022, on its ongoing business conduct obligations in Singapore.
• Advising Dimensional Fund Advisers, a global investment manager with US$575 billion assets under management as of June 30, 2022, on its compliance obligations in Singapore as a retail fund manager.

Fintech and Payment Service Providers

• Advising Western Union on its Singapore business plans.
• Advising Alibaba Group on its e-commerce platform activities.
• Advising Alipay on its payments business.
• Conducting regulatory analysis for Mastercard on its business initiatives for Singapore.
• Providing Singapore regulatory advice to Kumumedia Technologies, a Filipino unicorn operating Kumu, the largest social entertainment app in the Philippines.
• Advising a leading provider of institutional-grade digital asset investment products on the Singapore licensing framework for dealing in digital payment tokens.
• Acting as Singapore regulatory counsel to an Asia-based growth capital asset manager in its acquisition of a wholesale cryptocurrency financial services provider.
• Advising a cryptocurrency financial services company on its acquisition of a Singapore OTC cryptocurrency trading company
• Advising an American multinational investment bank on its corporate card program and payments products.