Daren Shiau, BBM, PBM

Partner

Daren Shiau, BBM, PBM, is a corporate lawyer, and is Co-Head of the Firm’s Corporate & Commercial Department.

A leading regional competition law and foreign investments specialist, he is concurrently Regional Co-Head of Competition & Foreign Investment Review. His practice covers antitrust litigation, international cartels, monopolies and dominance, foreign investment screening, and global merger control.

Daren’s market-leading expertise dates back to antitrust origins in the region, when he had been cited as “the most highly nominated practitioner”, and “a real expert according to rivals”, in the inaugural Competition chapter of Who’s Who Legal: Singapore. For his unparalleled antitrust experience, Daren is recognised in the tier of Most Highly Regarded in Who’s Who Legal: Southeast Asia 2021, in which he is referred to as the “number one name in Singapore” due to his “stellar reputation”. Who’s Who Legal: Competition 2022 names Daren as “senior statesman” of the Singapore competition bar.

Ranked as a Global Elite Thought Leader for the Asia-Pacific region by Who’s Who Legal: Competition, Chambers Asia-Pacific names Daren as “Singapore’s top competition lawyer”. Daren is the first and only Singapore competition lawyer to be ranked an Eminent Practitioner by Chambers Asia-Pacific.

Before he turned 40 in 2012, Daren was named by Global Competition Review as one of the world’s most talented competition lawyers, in its 40 Under Forty survey, and is the only South-east Asian lawyer in the history of the list. Who’s Who Legal: Competition updates that “Daren Shiau cuts a distinguished figure in the Singaporean market”.

When omnibus foreign investment control law was introduced in Singapore in 2024, Daren received an inaugural recognition in the same year by Who’s Who Legal: Foreign Investment Control in naming him “a clear leader in FDI reviews” whose “deep understanding of concepts of foreign ownership, control and influence in the region are unsurpassed”.

His “superstar” deal book of ground-breaking competition transactions, which has been described by Chambers Global as “market-leading”, covers general antitrust, designated entities, as well as sectoral regimes such as banking and insurance, media and telecommunications, electricity and gas, and airports.

Daren is Singapore’s first-ever appointed non-governmental advisor to the Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore (CCCS) at the International Competition Network (ICN). Peers recognise that his collective antitrust “achievements are well-deserved”.

A commissioned trainer of the high-level ASEAN Experts Group on Competition (AEGC), Daren is also Principal Examiner on competition law for both the Singapore Institute of Legal Education’s Foreign Practitioners Examinations, as well as its gateway Singapore Bar Examinations. He has also worked in Magic Circle London and Brussels competition practices on European Commission and Office of Fair Trading matters, and is a non-practising solicitor of England and Wales.

Daren graduated on the Dean’s List of the National University of Singapore in 1996, and was awarded the Malayan Law Journal Book Prize. He is currently District Councillor of the Central Singapore District, and has served on governmental agencies and committees throughout his career. For his contributions to the nation, Daren was conferred the Public Service Medal (Pingat Bakti Masyarakat) in 2016, and the Public Service Star (Bintang Bakti Masyarakat) in 2022.

Work Highlights

• Lead advisor in a predominant majority of Singapore’s merger control cases, and the majority of all complex Phase 2 Reviews, including Grab/Uber, Siemens/Alstom and Alstom/Bombardier, Thomson/Reuters, Holcim/Lafarge, Johnson & Johnston/Synthes, Volkswagen/MAN, Western Digital/SanDisk, GlobalWafers/Siltronic, Analog Devices/Maxim, SK Hynix/Intel, AMD/Xilinx, Thermo Fisher/PPD, iNova/Mundipharma, Glencore/Chemoil, Nippon Steel/Sumitomo Metal, Hyundai Heavy/Daewoo Shipbuilding, Sembcorp Marine/Keppel Offshore, Times Publishing/Penguin Random House, Fujifilm/Entegris, and SIA/Airbus.
• Successfully represented appellants in a watershed Competition Appeal Board matter where the CCCS was adjudged to have failed to establish liability in an issued Infringement Decision.
• Successfully defended parties in 100 per cent. of Singapore’s international cartel decisions to-date, including acting for the successful amnesty applicant of Singapore’s first global cartel decision (freight forwarding), and the successful leniency applicants to its second (ball bearings) and third (aluminium electrolytic capacitors) ones.
• Successfully represented parties in numerous landmark abuse of dominance and unilateral effects cases to-date. Daren acted for the complainant in the investigation against the world’s largest soft drinks maker (which received the GCR Behavioural Matter of the Year for Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa), and the first dominance appeal to the Competition Appeal Board (ticketing). Founding member of the International Bar Association Antitrust Committee’s inaugural Unilateral Conduct Working Group.