Daryl Lai

Introduction

Daryl Lai is a senior partner at JTJB-Taipei. He graduated with an LLB (honours) from the University of London; an LLM from Nottingham Trent University; an LLM from Leeds Beckett University, and an LLM from Anglia Ruskin University. He also has a graduate diploma in international mergers and acquisitions. He is currently a postgraduate researcher at the University of Reading working towards his PhD, which is focused on the interplay between AI and corporate law.

Lai’s responsibility at JTJB-Taipei takes him across a variety of legal disciplines. This would include advice given to the Asian subsidiary of a US underwater cable company on the sale of major corporate assets in Taiwan and the merger of two major accounting firms on the island. Lai has also acted for the Taiwanese petroleum company, CPC, in several major contractual disputes with offshore vendors. He acted for a very prominent Asian government in the sale of landed assets in Taiwan. He has also advised Southeast Asian government-owned airlines in setting up a business presence in the Taiwan market. He advised one of the richest Taiwanese American billionaires in the US in a cross-border family dispute that ultimately resulted in redistributing sizeable personal wealth. He has also advised a famous Asian singer-songwriter on licensing rights in the country.

On the shipping and transportation side, Lai was involved in legal work on the infamous SQ006 air crash at Taoyuan Airport. He has also handled various financing and corporate acquisitions for one of the largest ship owners in Taiwan. He was previously involved in several high-profile cases, which includes the MT Chang Yun (one of the widest marine oil pollution incidents in Taiwanese maritime history) and the MV Maersk Dubai (which sparked international attention regarding charges of murder on the high seas drawn against the Taiwanese officers of a major container line). He is, to date, the only lawyer in Taiwan who has arbitrated in London on shipping matters for local clients. He is also the only lawyer in Taiwan capable of conducting an offshore maritime casualty investigation.

Lai is the author of the fourth, fifth, and sixth editions of the Taiwan chapter of the Shipping Law Review – ISBN Publication No. 978-1-910813-652. He is also the writer of the Taiwan chapter of The International Comparative Legal Guide to Insurance and Reinsurance Law, Second Edition – ISBN Publication No. 978-908070-50-0.