Ian De Witt

Partner at Tanner DeWitt

Speaker

Ian De Witt was born in Wales and obtained an honours degree in law in London. After qualifying as a solicitor in England and Wales in 1989, he joined and became a partner in a prominent London law firm where he worked for many years before coming to Hong Kong in 1996. Throughout his career, Ian has focused on commercial litigation and insolvency matters, including debt recovery, asset tracing and the enforcement of judgments, pre-emptive actions such as injunctions, court appointed receivers, and the appointment of provisional liquidators. He acts and advises in a variety of insolvency cases, acting for liquidators, receivers, creditors, security agents, bondholders and directors. Additionally, he has advised and acted in a wide range of commercial and contractual disputes, professional negligence claims, partnership and shareholder disputes. Ian has also advised and acted for directors, employees and companies in respect of investigations, regulatory matters and prosecutions carried out by the Police, the Independent Commission Against Corruption (“ICAC”), the Commercial Crime Bureau (“CCB”), the Securities and Futures Commission (“SFC”) and various professional disciplinary committees. Ian has been a member of the International Insolvency Institute for several years and is also an accredited mediator of the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre. He sits on the Insolvency Committee for the Law Society, the technical and editorial committee of the Restructuring and Insolvency Faculty of Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the Official Receiver's Office Services Advisory Committee, and is a director of the Company and Insolvency Law Society. He established Tanner De Witt in 1999 with his partner Richard Tanner (since retired) and one member of staff. Today, the firm is one of Hong Kong’s largest and best-known independent law firm, regularly ranked as a leading firm, now having 17 partners and 100 people. Ian is consistently recognised as a ‘Leading Lawyer’ for restructuring and insolvency in Hong Kong by various industry publications (since 2014) including Chambers Asia Pacific/Greater China Region and Legal 500 (he currently stands as a Hall of Fame recipient), IFLR, Who’s Who Legal and the Global Restructuring Review