FEATURE | ALB In-House 25 >>
in-house
25 Laurence W Bates, GE Japan Duncan Bell, UBS Sheena Brand, CLP Holdings Siriporn Chaiyasuta, Chevron Asia South Lena Chia, Temasek Holdings Joyce Fong, Singapore Exchange Qiao Hai, Ufida Software Michelle Hung, COSCO Pacific
operation for the commercial bank as well as how to further optimise ICBC legal risk-control system and thus, finally facilitate and promote the development of banking in-house legal counsel service
Lawrence Liu CLO, China Electronic Systems Corporation Top 3 practice areas of outsourced work M&A, project finance and litigation
Duncan Bell
debt financing/principle finance; third area is structured derivatives
Recent notable activity Dealing with stateowned assets M&A deal in Sichuan Province, the CESEC (China) Claim Agreement with METCO (Saudi Arabia), and the GSM-R IP agreement and application issue involving the Railway Ministry and 16 major railway telecommunication manufacturers in China
Gavin Ingram, BlueScope Steel Shao Jingyang, China Petrochemical O Joon Kwon, LG Electronics Ginney Lim, Singapore Press Holdings Lawrence Liu, China Electronics Systems Patraporn Milindasuta, Phatra Securities Peter Siembab, Citi Tim Steinert, Alibaba Group
Top 3 most-used domestic and international firms Domestic: Beijing Qizhi Law Firm, Beijing Zhigong Law Firm, Shandong Deheng Law Firm International: Koo and Partners (HK), Clyde & Co (Dubai)
Janet Taylor, STATS ChipPAC Yu Tengqun, China Railway Group Lam Vu Thao, Intel Products Vietnam Maureen Toh, Usaha Tegas Bharat Vasani, Tata Group David M Waters, IBM Korea Zhang Wei, ICBC
What do you consider the do’s and don’ts for outside counsel? Do’s: Keep close touch with clients Don’ts: Respond slowly to clients
Yan Xueming, Vanke Group Akiko Yamahara, Nikko Citigroup
What is your biggest challenge for the coming year? Utilise the legal techonology to make in-house work more efficient in response to continued demands coming from business development
Duncan Bell Head of legal, UBS Top 3 practice areas of outsourced work At the moment it would be equity/M&A; the second area is probably the private
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Recent notable activity The market has slowed down a little and we have a tremendous pipeline of deals in the works. Right now it is probably more M&A work that’s prominent; the restructuring of the Chinese telecom industry is also quite interesting. We just closed a deal for Wing Lung Bank, which was a public M&A deal and one of the highest book values paid by a Chinese bank to get into the Hong Kong market Top 3 most-used firms Linklaters, Clifford Chance, King & Wood What do you consider the do’s and don’ts for outside counsel? Do’s: Sufficient senior involvement is key. Not everything needs to be handled by a partner but make sure senior involvement is sufficient. Also, bring critical issues to the attention of internal legal or senior bank staff – there is sometimes call to be a control function, to say “you can’t do that” Don’ts: Don’t bait and switch with your quotes. Don’t leave it all up to juniors, don’t just act as the author or scribe; they can’t just say, well we held the pen and subcontracted our thinking to someone else. Don’t take on too much work. You do see it in Asia a lot, where clients are not as sophisticated; you see law firms trying to score points, which is just not productive What is your biggest challenge for the coming year? To be very candid, it’s really dealing with the sub-prime fallout. That has resulted in a lot more regulatory dialogue and Asian Legal Business ISSUE 8.8