Yacine Ben-Meriem, Chief Financial Officer, Valeura Energy
Mr. Ben-Meriem, is a finance professional with over 15 years experience in oil and gas investment banking and finance, most of which have been focused on Southeast Asia. Before joining Valeura as CFO, he was a founder of Panthera Resources, a start-up E&P company focused on Southeast Asia, which became Valeura’s key partner in pursuing its two Gulf of Thailand acquisitions. Prior experiences include increasingly senior resource-oriented positions with ABN AMRO and Standard Chartered in Singapore, in addition to earlier-career roles with Ernst and Young.
Philip Morgan, Partner, Freshfields
Philip is a partner in Freshfields’ Global M&A and Capital practice, based in Singapore and leads both our energy and natural resources practice in Asia and our Indonesia practice.
He has nearly 25 years of experience advising corporates, financial investors and governments on their global acquisitions, joint ventures, project developments and divestments. Philip’s practice focuses primarily on three areas: transactions and projects in the energy and natural resources sector, including in the upstream and downstream oil & gas, LNG, chemicals, power (including renewables) and low carbon sub-sectors; Indonesian transactions and matters across all sectors; and emerging markets M&A. He is also a member of our Sustainability Leadership Team.
Since relocating to Southeast Asia more than 17 years ago, Philip has acted for clients on many of the most significant energy M&A transactions and projects in the Asia-Pacific region and globally, as well as a number of landmark and first of their kind transactions and projects in Indonesia and throughout Southeast Asia.
Philip is recognised as a leading lawyer by major legal directories. He is ranked Band 1 for International Energy & Natural Resources in Singapore, and recognized for his work in Indonesia in Projects & Energy, by Chambers and Partners, where clients say that he is 'commercial, pragmatic and a top energy lawyer in the region'. He is also named by Legal 500 as a 'Leading Individual' for Energy, and a 'Next Generation Lawyer' for Corporate and M&A, in Singapore. Philip is an occasional lecturer at Universitas Indonesia in Jakarta and Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta.
Samantha Tan, Partner, Freshfields
Samantha is experienced in representing clients in complex, high-stakes disputes, usually involving cross-border elements.
Samantha represents clients in international commercial arbitrations. She also represents both investors and States in investor-State arbitrations. She has been involved in arbitrations under the ICSID, UNCITRAL, ICC, SIAC, AIAC, and HKIAC arbitral rules, relating to post-M&A issues, joint ventures, construction, and shareholder disputes in the oil & gas, renewable energy, financial, life sciences, technology, real estate, automotive, consumer, and other sectors.
She also has years of experience practising commercial litigation before the Singapore High Court and Court of Appeal, with a top-tier Singapore disputes practice.
She occasionally acts as arbitrator and mediator.
Samantha has been recognised as an Up and Coming arbitration lawyer by Chambers Asia-Pacific 2025, one of the Future Leaders globally by Lexology Index: Arbitration 2025, and a Next Generation Partner by Legal 500. She was also named in The Legal 500’s 2023 Private Practice Powerlist for Arbitration in Southeast Asia and a Rising Star in Singapore by Asian Legal Business in 2023.
Samantha leads the Asia chapter of the firm’s Women’s Network, which seeks to represent and empower women at work as part of Freshfields’ diversity and inclusion strategy.