Jones Day Professorship of Commercial Law Lecture 2022

Synopsis

One visible response by regulators to mounting challenges facing the administrative state has been a sharp turn towards litigation to test new legal theories, ferret out ambiguities in law, and bring a broader ambit of actors and activities more clearly into the regulatory perimeter. This activity, broadly termed “regulation by enforcement,” has ushered in criticisms—and an implicit assumption around the world that such regulatory conduct is illegal.

For his Jones Day Lecture, Professor Chris Brummer will offer a sneak peek into forthcoming research concerning what is at its core a nebulous term of art. Drawing on recent developments in cryptocurrency law, he will catalogue some of the ways in which regulation by enforcement raises important questions about the nature of the administrative state, and then catalogue some of the possible drivers behind the phenomenon. He will offer preliminary observations concerning its legality under U.S. law, and provide an overview of the opportunities, tradeoffs and risks. He will then end by cataloguing some best practices for global regulators, regardless of their jurisdiction.

Programme

Guest of Honour

Mr Lam Chee Kin
Managing Director & Head
Group Legal, Compliance & Secretariat
DBS Bank Ltd

Chee Kin is accountable for the team which manages the legal and regulatory risk of DBS across legal entities, segments and geographies. Prior to joining, he held various legal and compliance portfolios in Standard Chartered Bank, JPMorgan, Rajah & Tann and Allen & Gledhill, including a stint as Chief Operating Officer, South East Asia for JPMorgan.

A lawyer by profession, he has particular expertise in financial services regulation, and financial markets product and business structuring. Currently, however, he is focusing on the impact of digitisation, and the evolution of frameworks that will be necessary to cope with digitisation and data, together with second-order issues such as how criminal activity will also evolve, and how legal and compliance departments can benefit from analytics and AI.

Chee Kin currently serves on the Advisory Board to the Singapore Management University Yong Pung How School of Law and the Advisory Panel to the NUS Centre for Banking and Finance Law. In 2015, Chee Kin was recognised as a Distinguished Fellow by the Institute of Banking and Finance in the field of compliance.

Jones Day Professor of Commercial Law

Professor Chris Brummer
Jones Day Professor of Commercial Law
Georgetown University Law Center

Chris Brummer is Agnes Williams Sesquicentennial Professor of Financial Technology and the Director of Georgetown’s Institute of International Economic Law. As a professor, advisor, board member and advocate, Chris has lent his expertise to policymakers, founders, startups, and nonprofits around the world grappling with some of the most challenging puzzles facing innovation, regulation, and inclusion. His work has been featured in The New York Times, CNN, Marketwatch, Fast Company, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Yahoo Money, Roll Call, Cointelegraph, and Coin Desk, among others.

Chris’s public service and volunteer work extend across government. In addition to serving as a member of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s Subcommittee on Virtual Currencies and the Consultative Working Group for the European Securities and Markets Authority’s Financial Innovation Standing Committee, Chris has served as a member of the National Adjudicatory Council of FINRA. Most recently, he served as a member of the Biden-Harris Transition team, assisting in leading work streams relating to financial technology, racial equity and systemic risk for the Treasury ART. He is currently the Co-Chair of CNAS Task Force on FinTech, Crypto, and National Security.

A frequent speaker and lecturer, Chris was asked to deliver the keynote speech for the SEC’s Black History celebration in 2021, and FinCEN’s Black History celebration in 2022.

Chris graduated summa cum laude from Washington University in St. Louis, holds a J.D. with honors from Columbia Law School and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. He is the author or editor of several books, including Cryptoassets: Legal, Regulatory and Monetary Perspectives and Fintech Law in a Nutshell.

Chris is the host of CQ Roll Call’s Fintech Beat podcast, and founder of Washington DC’s Fintech Week, an annual free event for the public.

Speakers

Mr Ben Witherall
Partner
Jones Day

Ben Witherall is an English-qualified corporate finance lawyer with more than 10 years of experience advising on private equity, M&A, and debt and equity capital markets transactions. He advises clients located throughout Asia, including Singapore, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, and China, as well as U.S. and European clients on their Asia transactions.

Ben advises public and private companies, private equity funds, investors, and financial institutions on a wide range of corporate transactions including international and domestic mergers, acquisitions, disposals, investments and joint ventures, as well as public and private securities offerings, IPOs, block trades, debt security issuances, and secondary fund-raisings. He also advises fund sponsors and investors in the establishment of private equity and real estate funds and the portfolio investments undertaken by such funds.

Mr Yeong Zee Kin
Assistant Chief Executive (Data Innovation and Protection Group), Infocomm Media Development Authority of Singapore (IMDA)
Deputy Commissioner, Personal Data Protection Commission (PDPC) 

As Assistant Chief Executive (Data Innovation and Protection Group), Zee Kin oversees IMDA’s AI and Data Industry development strategy with the key responsibility in developing forward-thinking governance on AI and data in Singapore. He also spearheaded the development of Singapore’s Model AI Governance Framework, which won the UNITU WSIS Prize in 2019. He is currently a member of the OECD Network of Experts on AI (ONE AI), and was a member of the AI Group of Experts at the OECD (AIGO) which developed the OECD Principles on AI. 

In his capacity as Deputy Commissioner of PDPC, Zee Kin oversees the development, administration and enforcement of the Personal Data Protection Act (2012). His key responsibilities include managing the formulation and implementation of policies relating to the protection of personal data, as well as the issuing of enforcement directions for organisational actions. As a well-regarded expert on data privacy issues, he has spearheaded various public and sector-specific activities to raise awareness and compliance in data protection, and is currently participating as an expert in the Global Partnership on AI (GPAI)’s Data Governance Working Group, which addresses data protection issues at the intersection of AI development and deployment.

Professor Lee Pey Woan
Dean, Yong Pung How School of Law
Singapore Management University

Professor Lee Pey Woan is currently Dean and Professor of Law at the Yong Pung How School of Law (YPHSL). She was previously Vice Provost (Faculty Matters) at the Office of the Provost (PVO) as well as Associate Dean (Undergraduate Teaching and Curriculum) at YPHSL and the Academic Director for Faculty Affairs at PVO. As Vice Provost (Faculty Matters), she was closely involved in the review and development of the University’s academic governance policies.

Pey Woan teaches Corporate Law but her research interests encompass company, private and commercial law. She has published widely in local as well as leading international journals including the Modern Law Review, Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, Law Quarterly Review, Lloyd’s Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly as well as Journal of Business Law. She has also co-authored text books on Contract Law, Tort Law and Company Law. Her works have been cited by the Singapore Court of Appeal, the Singapore High Court and the Canadian Supreme Court. Pey Woan also serves the legal profession by periodically speaking at legal conferences.

Pey Woan graduated from King’s College London and subsequently obtained the Bachelor of Civil Law from Oxford University. She is also an Advocate and Solicitor of the Singapore Supreme Court. In the past, she was appointed amicus curiae to the Singapore Court of Appeal and has also been called to the external Bar in England and Wales (Middle Temple).