Associate

Fontaine Lai

Languages

English
Mandarin
Chinese

Social media

Fontaine is an associate in the Hong Kong Office. She is experienced in handling shipping litigation and arbitration matters, and has also assisted with general commercial disputes and insolvency matters.

Prior to joining CMS, Fontaine worked for an international shipping law firm and an International Group P&I Club. She has written for various publications, including The Annotated Ordinances of Hong Kong: Bills of Lading and Analogous Shipping Documents Ordinance (Cap 440) (2nd edition, 2018) published by LexisNexis Butterworths.

Fontaine is a Hong Kong qualified lawyer who obtained her LLB, PCLL and LLM at the University of Hong Kong. Prior to reading law, Fontaine obtained a BBA (Law) degree from the same university, having been on the Dean’s Honours List and graduating with First Class Honours. She is fluent in English, Mandarin and Cantonese.

Relevant experience

Shipowners, charterers and P&I Clubs in various charterparty disputes.
Cargo interests in various cargo recovery claims.
A Belgian bank in the recovery of funds amounting to HKD 468m fraudulently dissipated across multiple corporate layers in an email scam.
Parties involved in personal injury incidents at hotels and cruise ships.

Publications

Annotator of The Annotated Ordinances of Hong Kong: Bills of Lading and Analogous Shipping Documents Ordinance (Cap 440) (LexisNexis Butterworths, 2nd edition, March 2018).
Co-author of “Hong Kong Passes Apology Bill”, published in Hong Kong Lawyer (August 2017).
Author of eleven articles published on Lexis Practical Guidance Hong Kong: Employment.

Memberships & Roles

CEDR-Accredited Mediator.
Associate of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators.

Education

2012 – LLM in Corporate and Financial Law, University of Hong Kong
2010 – PCLL, University of Hong Kong
2009 – LLB, University of Hong Kong
2007 – BBA (Law), University of Hong Kong

Practice Areas

Dispute Resolution Commercial International Arbitration

sectors

Marine Insurance Maritime

Insights

Global Reach