Desiree Lim

Partner

Desiree is a Partner in the Allen & Gledhill Competition & Foreign Investment Review Practice.

She has more than half a decade of experience advising clients on a broad range of antitrust issues, including merger control, cartels and abuse of dominance. Her experience extends across a wide range of sectors, such as financial, aviation, real estate, technology, and semiconductor sectors. Clients both in Singapore and outside of Singapore recognise her for her sophisticated analysis, commercial approach, and ability to anticipate clients’ needs.

Desiree was ranked a “Rising Star” by The Legal 500 Asia Pacific in 2023. From 2021 to 2023, she was involved in over 40 per cent. of the merger reviews conducted by the Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore (“CCCS”), with combined transaction values exceeding S$100 billion. These included various complex mergers that moved, or proposed to move, into Phase 2 reviews.

Desiree graduated from King’s College London in 2015, and was called to the Singapore Bar in 2017.

Work Highlights

  • Advising Grab Holdings Inc. (“Grab”) in the ground-breaking CCCS infringement decision against Grab’s acquisition of Uber Technologies Inc.’s Southeast Asian business in 2018.
  • Advising London Stock Exchange Group, as Singapore antitrust counsel, on its US$27 billion acquisition of Refinitiv, securing a conditional Phase 2 clearance in Singapore in 2021.
  • Advising CapitaLand Limited (“CapitaLand”) on the global merger control and foreign investment-related aspects of the US$7.5 billion strategic restructuring and demerger of the investment management platforms of CapitaLand in 2021, in the first ever transaction in Singapore involving a demerger, listing by way of spin-off and take private in the same transaction.
  • Advising Korean Air Lines Co., Ltd (“Korean Air”). as Singapore antitrust counsel, on the US$1.6 billion acquisition by Korean Air of a majority stake in Asiana Airlines Inc., which would create a combined entity carrying the third largest share of international cargo in the world, and securing an unconditional Phase 1 clearance in Singapore for the transaction in 2022.
  • Advising Intel Corporation (“Intel”), as Singapore antitrust counsel, on the US$9 billion sale of Intel’s NAND memory and storage business to SK hynix Inc. and securing an unconditional Phase 1 clearance in Singapore for the transaction in 2021.

Publications