WilmerHale

Partner

Jonathan Lim is a triple-qualified English solicitor, Singapore advocate, and New York lawyer with a focus on complex international disputes. He has a broad practice representing clients in all types of commercial and investment treaty arbitrations seated in common law and civil law jurisdictions worldwide, including England, New York, Singapore, Hong Kong, France, Brazil, The Netherlands, and Switzerland. His experience also includes ad hoc and institutional arbitrations under the rules of the HKIAC, ICC, ICDR, LCIA, PCA, SIAC, UNCITRAL, and others. He has represented both private sector and government clients in the aerospace, construction, energy, financial services, insurance, telecommunications, technology, and retail sectors, among others. Mr Lim has also worked on WTO dispute settlement matters and advised international organisations and governments in Africa and Asia on public international law issues.

As part of an engagement by the ADB, Mr. Lim advised Palau, Papua New Guinea, Tonga, and Timor Leste on their accessions to the New York Convention. Mr Lim also worked closely with the ADB and UNCITRAL to advise governments in the South Pacific on the drafting of legislation, and he played a key role in the drafting of the 2017 Fiji International Arbitration Act, the 2020 Tonga International Arbitration Act, as well as related subsidiary legislation.  He continues to be engaged by the ADB to advise on legislation drafting in Palau, Papua New Guinea, and Timor Leste. Mr. Lim also previously assisted with the drafting of freedom of information and fisheries legislation in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and Somalia, and he is one of the founding members of a task force formed to assist with Somalia’s accessions to the New York Convention and the World Trade Organization.

Mr. Lim regularly sits as arbitrator and has received appointments as sole and party-appointed arbitrator in multiple proceedings seated in Europe and Asia.  These include Chinese language arbitrations, bilingual English-Chinese arbitrations, as well as arbitrations governed by Chinese law, English law, German law, Singapore law and the CISG. Mr. Lim was recently Secretary to the Drafting Committee for the AFSA International Arbitration Rules, and played a significant role in the drafting of the revised rules, which came into effect on 1 June 2021. Mr. Lim also assisted the SIAC Rules Revision Executive Committee, then chaired by Gary Born, in the most recent revision of the SIAC Rules in 2016.

Mr. Lim is Co-Chair of the Asia-Pacific Forum for International Arbitration, a Member of the AFSA International Court, and a member of the SIAC Users Council. He is an Associate Editor of the African Journal of International Arbitration.

Mr. Lim is a Visiting Senior Fellow at the National University of Singapore, where he has taught commercial and investment arbitration since 2016.  He has also lectured at the China University of Political Science and Law, King’s College London, the London School of Economics, the National Law School of India University (Bangalore), the National University of Juridical Sciences (Kolkata), and the Singapore Management University.  He also publishes and speaks regularly on international arbitration and financial regulation.

Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Lim worked with the World Bank's Finance, Private Sector and Infrastructure Practice Group in Washington DC. There, his portfolio included providing legal advisory services, on financial regulation, corporate insolvency and infrastructure-related issues, to developing country governments in Asia, Eastern Europe and the Pacific Islands. Mr. Lim also worked as a research fellow and associate for the Committee on Capital Markets Regulation in Cambridge, MA. He trained with a major Singapore law firm.

Chinese (Mandarin), Indonesian