Michelle Tay

Full Profile

Michelle provides strategic counsel to clients on managing internal and government investigations into white-collar offences such as corruption, fraud, money laundering, and employee misconduct. She partners with clients to develop robust crisis management plans in response to regulatory interventions and engage constructively with regulatory authorities.

Michelle’s advisory work extends to helping clients strengthen compliance frameworks and designing internal investigation procedures through tailored risk assessments, policy development, and response protocols. Michelle also represents clients in resolving commercial disputes and international arbitration.

Prior to joining Clyde & Co, Michelle was a Deputy Public Prosecutor and State Counsel at the Attorney-General’s Chambers for close to seven years. Michelle specialised in complex white-collar crime prosecutions, including cross-border money laundering, fraud, embezzlement, market manipulation, and financial regulatory breaches.

During her time as a prosecutor, Michelle oversaw significant complex investigations conducted by the Commercial Affairs Department and the Monetary Authority of Singapore, and advised on investigative and enforcement strategies such as dawn raids, asset seizures and investigative statement recording. Michelle regularly advised regulatory authorities on matters relating to corporate and directors’ liability and corporate risk management standards, particularly in the context of Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) compliance. She was also lead counsel representing the State in various criminal trials, appeals and asset forfeiture actions before the Singapore courts.

Experience

• Acted for the State in a multi-billion-dollar cross-border money laundering prosecution. Provided real-time advice to enforcement authorities on investigative strategies, including on asset seizure, remand of suspects and funds tracing. Secured the convictions of the offenders, and successfully applied for the forfeiture of over SGD 900M to the State. 
• Oversaw investigations into a USD 800M fraudulent copy-trading forex investment scheme. Advised on and successfully defended the Police’s seizure of USD 100M worth of crypto assets.
• Defended an appeal in the Court of Appeal concerning an elaborate market manipulation scheme that led to the penny stock crash which wiped out almost SGD 8 billion in market value from the Singapore Exchange. 
• Succeeded in a criminal appeal on behalf of the State in Public Prosecutor v Zheng Jia [2025] SGHC 76, in which the Singapore High Court introduced a new sentencing framework for a professional “nominee” director’s breach of their statutory duty to exercise reasonable diligence. 
• Successfully prosecuted a USD 20M fraudulent multi-level marketing Ponzi investment scheme.
• Advised on the imposition of financial penalties on a global investment bank for mis-selling of financial products by its employees.
• Advised on the imposition of financial penalties on banks (including a Domestically Systemically Important Bank (D-SIB) and a global private bank), and various payment services licensees for breaches of AML/CFT regulations.

Qualifications

Education

• L.L.M, New York University (2018)
• L.L.B (First Class Honours), King’s College London (2017)

Bar

• Singapore

Scholarship awards

• Public Service Commission Singapore Government Scholarship (Open) Award