Sathiaseelan Jagateesan

Partner

Sathia is Co-Head of the Firm’s Construction & Engineering Practice. His area of practice encompasses a wide range of contentious and non-contentious work in building, construction, engineering and infrastructure projects. Sathia is a board member of the Building and Construction Authority, a statutory board under the Ministry of National Development in Singapore.

On the contentious side, Sathia regularly appears as counsel for public and private sector clients in complex and large-scale domestic and international arbitration, litigation, adjudication and mediation concerning the built environment. On the non-contentious side, he regularly advises on tender and project documentation under various procurement models in relation to domestic and regional building, construction, engineering and infrastructure projects.

Sathia is recognised as a Leading Individual in The Legal 500 Asia Pacific and ranked in Band 1 in Chambers Asia-Pacific for Construction. In The Legal 500 Asia Pacific he is described as “an outstanding construction lawyer and is the go-to lawyer for government” and that he is “very knowledgeable, wise, eloquent, patient and cares about his clients”. In Chambers Asia-Pacific, he is described as “highly sought after” and received “positive praise from clients who describe him as being ‘approachable, thorough, up to date with the developments in construction law, solution-orientated and impressively prompt’” Chambers Asia-Pacific also notes that he has an “excellent understanding of market practices in the construction industry”, “a high level of specialist knowledge in construction law and is clearly an expert in that field” and that he “draws praise from clients for ‘his legal knowledge, swift thinking, linguistic abilities and convincing lines of argument’”. He is recognised in Who’s Who Legal’s Global Leader and National Leader categories for Construction, as a Distinguished Practitioner for Construction in asialaw Leading Lawyers and as a Dispute Resolution Star for Construction in Benchmark Asia-Pacific.

Sathia is adjunct faculty at the Singapore University of Social Sciences and a member of the Construction Adjudicator Accreditation Committee and the Singapore Academy of Law (SAL) Law Reform Committee for building and construction law. He is recognised as an Accredited Specialist in Building and Construction Law by the SAL, is an Accredited Mediator with the Singapore Mediation Centre and has been appointed as arbitrator in ICC, SIAC and ad hoc international and domestic arbitrations.

Sathia joined the Firm in 2003, was seconded to 4 Pump Court Chambers, London in 2007/08 where he worked with leading Queen’s Counsel and became a Partner in 2009.

Work Highlights

• Advised government and government-linked entities on the project documentation on a wide range of public sector infrastructure projects including, rail, road, power and utilities projects.
• Advised owners and sponsors on the project documentation on a wide range of private sector projects, including, mixed-use developments, airports, data centres, power and processing plants, pharmaceutical, manufacturing, research and development and logistics facilities in Singapore and around the region.
• Advised a government agency in multiple SIAC arbitrations instituted by a turnkey contractor arising out of the design and construction of a major infrastructure project where claims were in excess of S$300 million.