Horizon Digital Group

The Problem#

• The founder holds 60% of the Singapore parent, 100% of the Vietnamese subsidiary, and 40% of an Australian joint venture — family members live in all three countries
• No single legal adviser has visibility of the complete picture — each jurisdiction’s lawyer knows only their piece
• Every attempt to create a unified succession plan fails because there is no structured way to represent cross-border business interests and family relationships in a single document
• Conflicts between jurisdictions (e.g. Vietnamese foreign ownership restrictions) go undetected until after death, when they become catastrophically expensive

How They’d Use INHERIT#

• The estate.json root record sets domicile to Singapore and status: "planning" — this is succession planning during the founder’s lifetime
• Business interests are modelled as asset.json entries with category: "business" and subcategory: "unlisted_equity", each with estimatedValue in the local currency (SGD, VND, AUD) via common/money.json
• Each company is an organisation.json entry with organisationType: "employer", and the Australian JV holding structure uses trust.json with trustType: "discretionary"
• The singapore-malaysia extension handles Singapore-specific rules, while australia-nz covers the JV — including potential FamilyProvisionClaim risks from Australian-resident children
• The founder’s wishes for business succession are recorded in wish.json with wishType: "distribution" and wishType: "letter"
• Family members across all three countries are person.json entries with kinship.json relationships linking them

The Integration#

• Bidirectional: each jurisdiction’s legal adviser works on their portion of the INHERIT document
• The lead Singapore adviser consolidates the complete picture — updates from any jurisdiction are merged into the master document
• The founder has a single, always-current view of their succession plan across all three countries

The Business Case#

• A unified plan replaces three separate legal engagements with no data sharing, reducing total advisory fees by approximately 25% — from S$180,000 to S$135,000
• The structured plan identifies conflicts early: if the will leaves Vietnamese subsidiary shares to a Singapore-resident child, Vietnamese foreign ownership restrictions would prevent the transfer
• Catching such conflicts during planning rather than after death avoids potential losses of several hundred thousand dollars
• The founder gains confidence that the succession plan actually works across all three jurisdictions

Before / After#

Without INHERIT:

1. Founder engages separate lawyers in Singapore, Vietnam, and Australia
2. Each lawyer drafts succession documents for their jurisdiction in isolation
3. No lawyer sees the others’ work — conflicts between jurisdictions go undetected
4. Founder dies; Vietnamese subsidiary shares cannot be transferred due to foreign ownership restrictions
5. Family faces forced sale of the subsidiary at a fraction of its value — 18 months of legal proceedings across three countries

With INHERIT:

1. Founder’s lead adviser creates a single INHERIT document covering all three jurisdictions
2. Each local adviser enriches their section — conflicts are flagged automatically
3. The Vietnamese ownership restriction is identified during planning and restructured
4. Founder dies; the succession plan executes cleanly across all three countries within months