Yi Siong is an Of Counsel in our Litigation and Dispute Management Team. He specialises in criminal litigation at the trial and appellate level, and has appeared as lead counsel at all levels of the Singapore courts. He has also been instructed to prosecute on behalf of professional bodies like the Singapore Medical Council and statutory bodies like the Energy Market Authority. From 2019 to 2021, Yi Siong acted for the second accused in what state prosecutors described as the most serious case of stock market manipulation in Singapore – the prosecution case took 169 hearing days.
Some of Yi Siong’s reported decisions as lead counsel include:
- Court of Appeal: Public Prosecutor v Bong Sim Swan Suzanna [2020] 2 SLR 1001, a criminal reference brought by the Prosecution to clarify the weight to be accorded to uncharged offences in sentencing.
- General Division of the High Court: Public Prosecutor v Soh Chee Wen [2020] 3 SLR 1435 (No. 1) & Public Prosecutor v Soh Chee Wen [2021] 3 SLR 641 (No. 2), appearing for the second defendant in both cases which involved novel points of law in criminal procedure. Soh Chee Wen (No. 1) concerned the Prosecution’s ability to invoke litigation privilege and Soh Chee Wen (No. 2) concerned a superior court’s inherent power to stay criminal proceedings for abuse of process.
Yi Siong is currently an advocacy tutor for Part B of the Singapore Bar Examinations and is an adjunct faculty at the Singapore Management University’s Yong Pung How School of Law. A keen believer in learning from overseas best practices, Yi Siong completed a 3-month secondment to Peters & Peters Solicitors LLP in 2018 and a 1-month attachment at barristers’ chambers 7BR in 2022.
In August 2019, Yi Siong was at 29 the youngest recipient of the prestigious Joseph Grimberg Outstanding Young Advocate Award by the Singapore Academy of Law. Named after a highly regarded former Judicial Commissioner and Senior Counsel, the award recognizes young lawyers in good standing who exhibit professional excellence, service to the profession and the bar, and service to the community. In December 2016, Yi Siong was at 27 the youngest male lawyer named by the Singapore Business Review as one of Singapore’s “Most Influential Lawyers aged 40 and under in 2016”.
Yi Siong has been a member of the Law Society of Singapore’s Criminal Law Practice Committee since January 2018. He also served as a Council member of the Law Society from January 2017 to December 2018. During the course of his 2-year term, he was described by Law Society President Gregory Vijayendran SC as having “played a vital role in drafting law reform papers for Council” (President’s Message, Singapore Law Gazette, August 2018). At the conclusion of his term on Council, Law Society CEO Delphine Loo Tan expressed the Law Society’s “deepest appreciation … for his tireless and dedicated service to the work of the Law Society” (CEO’s Message, Singapore Law Gazette, January 2019).
Yi Siong graduated magna cum laude from Singapore Management University in 2014, placing on the Dean’s List in his final year, and was admitted as an Advocate & Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Singapore in 2015. He was an international moot court coach with his alma mater from 2015 to 2020, having coached teams for the Price Media Law Moot Court Competition in Oxford, UK, the Red Cross International Humanitarian Law Moot in Hong Kong, and the Nuremberg Moot Court in Nuremberg, Germany. As an undergraduate, he was 4th Best Oralist at the 2013 Price Moot and Best Oralist of the 2014 Red Cross Moot.
