A New Chapter on the Bench: The Elevation of Sushil Nair By Blossom Hing
The legal community in Singapore marks a significant development with the appointment of Sushil Nair as a Judicial Commissioner of the Supreme Court. Sushil brings with him over three decades of experience in restructuring and insolvency, after his long-standing and illustrious career at Drew & Napier. Sushil also served on the III Regional Committee Asia and was the conference cochair for the III Annual Conference 2024.
Prior to his elevation to the judiciary, Sushil was the Deputy CEO of Drew & Napier LLC and also the Co-head of its Corporate Restructuring and Workouts practice. Over this time, the practice grew into one of the leading dedicated restructuring teams in Singapore, known for handling complex cross- border matters and achieving strong commercial outcomes for clients. Sushil led and advised on some of the region’ s most complex and high profile restructurings including the US $ 16 billion restructuring of
Asia Pulp & Paper, the US $ 2.6 billion restructuring exercise of PT Berlian Laju Tanker as well as the US $ 3.5 billion restructuring of Pacific International Lines where he represented Heliconia Capital, a subsidiary of Temasek Holdings.
Sushil’ s contributions have not gone unnoticed – he has received numerous accolades including being ranked in Band 1 by Chambers Asia-Pacific for 18 consecutive years, inducted into the Legal 500 Hall of Fame and identified as a Global Elite Thought Leader by Who’ s Who Legal.
Sushil has been instrumental in developing the R & I ecosystem in Singapore. Apart from
serving on the Insolvency Law Review Committee, the Insolvency Practice Committee of the Law Society, and the board of the Insolvency Practitioners Association of Singapore, Sushil was also a member of the committees convened by the Singapore Ministry of Law in 2017 and 2023, which were tasked with recommending initiatives and legal reforms that should be undertaken to enhance Singapore’ s effectiveness as a centre for international debt restructuring and to consider steps to further strengthen Singapore’ s corporate restructuring and insolvency regime. His policy work was pivotal in Singapore’ s development as an international restructuring and insolvency hub.
Beyond R & I, Sushil has also made wide-reaching contributions to Singapore’ s legal and public sectors. In 2022, he received the Friends of Ministry of Culture, Community & Youth Award for his role in the takeover of the Singapore Sports
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