To me, the practice of law is all about reconciliation – reconciling parties who have different needs or different positions to arrive at a common solution, or reconciling issues that people have to solutions within the framework of the law.
Tris Xavier
Associate Director
Head of Integrated Property Practice Group
Advocate and Solicitor, Supreme Court of Singapore
LLB (Hons), National University of Singapore, Class of 2009
Licensed Insolvency Practitioner
To me, the practice of law is all about reconciliation – reconciling parties who have different needs or different positions to arrive at a common solution, or reconciling issues that people have to solutions within the framework of the law.
Tris Xavier heads the Integrated Property Group at Yuen Law, specialising in Real Property, Intellectual Property and Insolvency. His expertise also extends to Personal Injury, Probate, Regulatory Advisory and Trust and Equitable Claims.
Specialisation
- Personal Insolvency & Bankruptcy
- Corporate Restructuring & Insolvency
- Conveyancing & Real Estate
- Intellectual Property
- Regulatory Advisory
- Probate
- Trusts & Equitable Claims
- Personal Injury
Language Proficiency
English, Mandarin
Tris Xavier is an Associate Director at Yuen Law and Head of the Integrated Property Practice Group, specialising in Real Property, Intellectual Property and Insolvency.
He thrives on building interconnected solutions for clients and believes that law cannot be approached in silos but must be seen holistically. Tris’ breadth of experience in diverse fields is testament to his ability to find and finetune effective solutions to solve problems and issues as they arise.
Tris offers legal guidance to clients on various real estate transactions such as sales and purchase of commercial, industrial, and residential properties. His services include drafting and reviewing agreements, loan and financing documents, conducting due diligence and title searches, and advising on legal implications and stamp duties during a sale of property.
Tris is experienced with intellectual property matters and provides comprehensive legal support for protecting and registering clients’ assets, including trade marks, geographical indications, and designs. Additionally, Tris and his team are experienced in managing and renewing international intellectual property portfolios to keep them in good standing.
Tris also brings a strong grasp of the ins and outs of insolvency and restructuring legalities from his years in the Insolvency and Public Trustee’s Office and the Ministry of Law. He provides expert legal counsel for companies and individuals looking to restructure their debt, moving forward when shareholder or financial issues plague the company, or when individuals are looking for a fresh start on their debt. Tris also acts for creditors looking to recover their debt. Tris is also able to represent creditors looking to recover their debt. He is also a licensed insolvency practitioner, and is able to act as a private trustee in bankruptcy, or as nominee for individual voluntary arrangements.
In his time as a civil servant, he undertook a breadth of work including court work, policy planning and stakeholder management, and was heavily involved with the 2015 reforms of the then “Bankruptcy Act”, and the 2018 passing of the new omnibus Insolvency, Restructuring and Dissolution Act.
He then joined the Singapore University of Social Sciences as a lecturer, teaching subjects as diverse as Equity and Trusts, Wills, and Constitutional Law, as well as spearheading the inaugural Legal Clerkship Programme.
Tris also enjoys explaining and demystifying what the law can mean for businesses and individuals. To this end, he has contributed two chapters to LexisNexis’ Annotated Laws of Singapore (the Constitution and the Moneylenders’ Act), and was featured as one of Singapore Academy of Law’s “Legal Personalities who get personal on LinkedIn”.
- Acted for two applicants in a novel application under section 328 of the Insolvency, Restructuring and Dissolution Act 2018 to seek the Court’s approval for the disposition of a property before the making of a Bankruptcy Order. This was the first reported case of its kind, and set out the principles for when the Court ought to grant such approval. (Re Eng Lee Ling and another application, [2024] SGHC 52)
- Represented the Official Reciever’s Office in a novel cross-border insolvency case, where the Court of Appeal had to determine the extent to which Singapore assets could be preserved for payments of locally incurred debts in the winding up of a foreign company. The central question was whether the assets should be held to satisfy Singapore creditors, or whether the assets should be transferred to liquidators in Germany to be dealth with under German insolvency law. The Court of Appeal found that there was no requirement to ring-fence Singapore assets for payment of local debts where the insolvent company was not registered in Singapore. (Beluga Chartering GmbH (in liquidation) and others v Beluga Projects (Singapore) Pte Ltd (in liquidation) and another (deugro (Singapore) Pte Ltd, non-party) [2014] 2 SLR 815; [2014] SGCA 14).
- Represented the Official Assignee in a case where the High Court had to determine if it had the power to make a bankruptcy order against a debtor that had already been adjudged a bankrupt in a foreign jurisdiction. (Lembaga Tabung Angkatan Tentera (Malaysia) v Ling Lee Soon [2017] 3 SLR 414; [2016] SGHC 254).
- Member of INSOL International
- Member of The Law Society of Singapore’s Insolvency Practice Committee
Download Tris Xavier's CV (PDF)
News about Tris Xavier
The law is a Swiss Army knife that can provide multifaceted solutions to an individual’s needs. Our role as lawyers therefore is to listen carefully, ask the right questions and think critically to ensure the solution appropriately addresses the client’s needs.
Articles by Tris Xavier
