International Trade
— Chambers Asia Pacific 2025“Shook Lin & Bok has a noteworthy team of seasoned shipping finance and litigation lawyers, often guiding clients on financing and restructuring matters. The team regularly handles both litigation and arbitration procedures, including cargo misdelivery, charter party, bill of lading and demurrage disputes. Its clients typically consist of major banks, judicial managers and commodities trading firms.”
— Chambers Asia Pacific 2025“The SLB team are very knowledgeable and possess sound working knowledge of the law, which renders them, in our books, experts in admiralty and maritime law. There is strong leadership and guidance from the top. Information, knowledge and experience is well communicated throughout the team to the associate levels.”
Our International Trade Practice Group provides integrated, cross-disciplinary counsel designed to navigate the complexities of global commerce. It draws upon the collective expertise of the firm’s leading practice areas, including Shipping & Commodities, Banking & Finance, Corporate and M&A, Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG), Financial Services Regulatory, Fintech, and Litigation & Dispute Resolution.
We provide comprehensive legal advice to safeguard your interests in the commodities, shipping, and trade finance sectors. Our services encompass the full transaction lifecycle, from contract structuring and financing through to dispute resolution and strategic investments. Our approach is pragmatic, solutions-oriented, and commercially focused.
By combining deep industry knowledge with strong cross-practice capabilities in finance, disputes, and corporate transactions, we deliver seamless, end-to-end support to clients operating in global trade markets.
We advise on the full spectrum of international trade services, including the following:
- Mergers and acquisitions in the commodity and maritime ecosystem
- Establishing Singapore and regional trading, shipping and chartering hubs
- Designing ship-owning structures and advising on joint ventures between shipowners, charterers, traders
- Corporate governance and internal restructurings for trading and shipping groups
- Shareholder and investment agreements for commodity and maritime ventures
- Exit and secondary transactions in the commodity and maritime sectors
- Blockchain-based trading platforms and digital trade documentation systems
- Regulatory support for digitalisation and tokenisation initiatives in the trade and commodities sector
- Trade association arbitrations before GAFTA, FOSFA, LME, SAL and other specialist tribunals
- Cargo contamination and damage claims
- Short cargo claims and quantity discrepancies
- Non-delivery claims and buyer/seller remedies
- Force majeure events and contractual performance
- Quality disputes and breach of specifications
- Demurrage and detention claims
- Fraud, misrepresentation and asset tracing
- Restructuring and insolvency affecting trading counterparties
- Marine, war risk, trade credit and cargo insurance
- ESG-resilient supply chain, logistics and trading contracts
- Emission Reduction Purchase Agreements and carbon credit transactions
- Environmental licensing for cross-border movement of regulated commodities
- Long-term supply agreements for commodities across multiple jurisdictions
- Sale and purchase agreements on industry-standard terms (CIF, CFR, FOB)
- Master trading agreements and framework contracts
- Warehousing and storage facility agreements
- Collateral management agreements for inventory and warehouse receipt financing
- Sanctions compliance, including UN sanctions and MAS requirements
- Contractual sanctions clauses
- AML, anti-bribery and anti-corruption compliance programmes
- Asset-backed securitisation of trade receivables and commodity inventories
- Collateralised debt obligations
- Credit default swaps and credit derivatives
- Credit linked notes and structured credit products
- Hybrid securities, including subordinated notes and convertible bonds
- Off-balance sheet and bankruptcy remote SPV financing structures
- Structured trade finance, including pre-export finance and tolling arrangements
- Borrowing base facilities secured against commodity inventories and receivables
- Supply chain and receivables financing programmes
- Inventory financing and related security structures
- Security documents, including pledges, performance bonds, assignments and guarantees
- Vessel and ship finance, including mortgage-backed lending and sale-and-leaseback
- Revolving trade facilities and working capital financing
