DLA Piper has hired Vincent Seah, formerly counsel with Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, as a project development and finance partner in Singapore.

Seah specialises in the development and financing of projects in the power, infrastructure, mining, metals, oil and gas, and petrochemicals industries in southeast Asia and Mongolia.

In 2015, he was part of the team that advised a consortium, led by French energy company GDF Suez, Korea's POSCO Energy, and Japanese trading house Sojitz Corp., on the development of a $1.5 billion greenfield coal-fired power plant in Mongolia's capital, Ulaanbaatar.

Seah was an associate at Shearman & Sterling's Singapore office for five years before joining Freshfields as counsel in 2016. He did a previous stint at the Magic Circle firm's London office as an associate from 2007 to 2011. Earlier in his career, Seah also practised at top Singaporean firm Allen & Gledhill.

"Growing our transactional finance and corporate practices in Asia is a key priority for us," Satpal Gobindpuri, the Hong Kong-based Asia co-managing partner of DLA Piper, said in a statement.

In January, DLA Piper recruited Herbert Smith Freehills' former Asia debt capital markets head Philip Lee as a corporate partner in Singapore. In Hong Kong, the global legal giant hired corporate partner Henry Cheng from Kirkland & Ellis in April last year.