Selvaraja Muthaya

With extensive global experience in the oil and gas industry, Selvaraja brings international benchmarks and business best practices to set out process integrity to contracting and projects management.

More than 34 years of experience as Engineering and Construction Contracts counsel with across-the-board expertise in Projects Contracting and Procurement for large scale grassroots venture, setting out Governance and Compliance management process pursuant to working with and/or for various global Oil and Gas Corporations like Foster Wheeler, Petronas, Shell-CNOOC, Honeywell and Qatar Petroleum.

Admitted to the High Court of Malaya in 2006, Selvaraja has been an In-house Corporate Counsel for over 20 years. Prior to that he served in the Malaysian Civil Service for 14 years and has represented the Government of Malaysia internationally in many contract commercial negotiations.

As In-house Corporate Counsel, Selvaraja served in many jurisdictions (ASEAN, UK, India, China, Middle East) with leading global and regional Engineering and Construction Corporations.

In the last 15 years, Selvaraja has headed and led Contract Commercial functions in Multi-National Oil and Gas Corporations. He specializes in the formulation, development and implementation of high value Project Contracts / Agreements including structuring and putting together EPC, EPIC, EPCM Agreements.

His expertise not only include contract reviews and contract development but he is well experienced in Modelling Contracts complete with all required Appendices/Attachments and advising on Contract Variations and Claims.

As a result of having worked with multiple corporations in wide ranging corporate matters, he has global knowledge, skills, expertise and competency in business climates including the Middle East North Africa (MENA) region.

Amongst the notable projects and contracts he worked on are FEED / EPCC / EPIC for Petronas Kerteh Petrochemocal Complex, the USD 4-billion Shell-CNOOC Nanhai Petroleum Complex in GuangDong, China, Qatar Petroleum, Qatar Foundation, EPIC/EPCOM/ FEED projects for Contractors in Thailand, MAS Campus, KLIA and TNB substation projects.

He was a founder of the Malaysian Corporate Counsel Association (MCCA), and served as pro-tem Secretary and later as Honorary Secretary for five (5) years, facilitated the setting up and running of this professional fraternity to provide a platform for budding corporate counsels. He represented MCCA globally and brought awareness of the critical role & function of Corporate Counsels in today’s business.

He graduated with a second-class upper degree in communication and management from University Science Malaysia (USM) in 1984 and went to obtain his LLB (Hons) from University of London in 1989. In 1994, he completed his Certificate in Legal Practice (CLP) at University of Malaya. He also completed his MBA with Distinction at University of Hull in 1998 obtaining the “Best Student Award”.

He has in-depth understanding of the Legal and Contract Commercial Regimes of Businesses, identifying and advising on strategies to mitigate Corporate Risks with emphasis on avoiding seepages and leakages leading to loss of revenue streams. His most recent project was formulating, developing and institutionalizing a legally entrenched Governance, Regulatory and Compliance (GRC) framework for corporations to ensure value optimization.