Lawyer’s Profile

Maria is a Senior Associate in the Corporate Compliance and Employment Department, as well as the Digital & Data Protection Lead in the firm. Having graduated from the National University of Singapore with an LLB (Hons) degree with Second Class (Upper Division) Honours in 2017, Maria joined PK Wong & Nair LLC in 2018 upon her admission as an Advocate & Solicitor of the Court of Singapore.

With a keen interest in digital and data protection law, Maria was one of the two contributing authors for the Singapore Annotated Statutes for the Personal Data Protection Act and the Spam Control Act. In addition to this, her areas of practice also cover a broad spectrum of corporate and commercial legal matters, and employment and immigration matters. With respect to corporate and commercial matters, her experience includes mergers and acquisitions (M&As), private equity fund-raising, corporate restructurings, franchising, joint ventures and general corporate advisory work. In addition, together with her team, she specialises in various aspects of regulation and compliance in Singapore across a diverse range of local and multinational companies which range across various industries from education to information technology.

Further to the above, Maria’s work also extends to employment and immigration law for clients ranging from local and foreign individuals to start-ups to multinational corporations, in both domestic and cross-border matters. Beyond general advisory matters on employment and immigration laws in Singapore, Maria also regularly advises clients on structuring and implementing employee benefit plans, various types of employment agreements including dual-employment agreements and secondment agreements, restructuring and redundancy exercises, and on compliance with statutory obligations under the Employment Act, Work Injury Compensation Act, Central Provident Fund Act and Employment of Foreign Manpower Act.

As the Digital & Data Protection Lead, Maria also leads the firm’s specialised practice in digital and data protection law, which was developed in recent years in the face of the modern business environment. With clients including new technology start-ups, Fintech companies and global software corporations, Maria actively assists with providing legal advice in matters relating to digital and data protection law as well as with drafting technology-related agreements (e.g., software licensing, provision of cloud computing services). She has also assisted numerous clients with drafting data protection policies and consent notifications, conducting data protection gap assessments and impact assessments, carrying out compliance reviews, and facilitating employee training sessions on data protection compliance. Her work also includes assisting clients with advising on data breach management and representing clients in the course of investigations conducted by the Personal Data Protection Commission of Singapore.

 

Skills & Qualifications / Accolades

• Certified Information Privacy Professional / Asia (CIPP / A)
• Practitioner Certificate in Personal Data Protection (Singapore) 2020
• Author of Singapore Annotated Statutes – Personal Data Protection Act and Spam Control Act

Memberships/Appointments:

• Member, Law Society of Singapore
• Member, Singapore Academy of Law

Year called to bar, University:

• Advocate & Solicitor, Supreme Court of Singapore (2018)
• Bachelor of Laws (Honours) (Second Upper), National University of Singapore (2017)