Based on research conducted by China Business Law Journal, the following are the winners and highly commended legal teams of CBLJ In-house Counsel Awards 2019. The awards are split into individual and team awards, and then into practice area and industry categories.
Click here to read the editorial report that accompanies the awards.
Detailed biographies and contact information, where provided, were written by the in-house counsels themselves and have not been independently verified.
Winner |
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☆ Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Legal Affairs Department Team Leader: Dong Jianjun (General Manager of Legal Affairs Department) |
Highly commended legal team |
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☆ Hillhouse Capital Legal and Compliance Department Team Leader: Adam Hornung (General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer) ☆ Shanghai Pudong Development Bank Legal and Compliance Department Team Leader: Gu Wei (Assistant General Manager) ☆ China CITIC Bank Law and Special Assets Management Department Team Leader: Wei Anyi (General Manager) and Wen Jianxiu (Vice General Manager) ☆ Nanyang Commercial Bank Operational Risk, Legal and Compliance Division Team Leader: Billy Young (Assistant Chief Executive)
Nanyang Commercial Bank is widely recognized for its variety and quality of banking services in Mainland China and Hong Kong. The division comprises professionals from different fields, providing full-fledged legal and compliance advice to the bank. The division also acts as a significant player in the second-line defence under “Three Lines of Defence” policy adopted by the bank. The division has the crucial obligations to assess and monitor the legal and compliance risks in the first line of defence and formulate and provide practical guidance. |
Winner |
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☆ NIO Legal Department Team Leader: Liu Fang (Vice President, General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer)
NIO Legal Team has a clear understanding of the company’s long-term strategy, objectives, and overall business operations, and possesses a strong ability to identify risks and solve problems, and to overall manage complex projects by engaging in active cross-functional communication, collaborative teamwork and swift response. NIO is the pioneer in the new energy automobile industry. NIO Legal Team played an important role in supporting the company in its global organization setup, strategy formulation, innovative business model setup, IP strategy implementation and industrial compliance, etc. |
Highly commended legal team |
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☆ China International Capital Corporation (Hong Kong) Legal Department of Legal and Compliance Team Leader: Joe Zhou (Managing Director, Head of Legal Department, Legal and Compliance) ☆ Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Legal Affairs Department Team Leader: Dong Jianjun (General Manager of Legal Affairs Department) ☆ Haier Smart Home Global Legal Platform – Overseas Legal Team Team Leader: Mah Soon Sin (Legal Director of International Affair) ☆ Juneyao Group Legal and Compliance Team Team Leader: Hope Hang (General Counsel) ☆ Meituan Dianping Legal Department Team Leader: Song Zhe (General Counsel) ☆ Bank of Communications International Trust Legal and Compliance Department Team Leader: Meng Juan (General Manager Legal and Compliance Department) |
Winner |
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☆ COSCO Shipping Ports Legal Department Team Leader: Michelle Hung (General Counsel, Company Secretary) |
Highly commended legal team |
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☆ China Life Capital Compliance and Risk Management Department Team Leader: Su Yanan (General Manager, Compliance and Risk Management Department) ☆ Golden Concord Group Legal Department of the Group Team Leader: Liu Zhao (General Manager Legal Department) ☆ SAIC Anji Logistics Co-operation and Legal Affairs Department Team Leader: Chen Hong (Director, Cooperation and Legal Affairs Department) ☆ Mary Kay (China) Legal Resources Department Team Leader: Wendy Wang (China Chief Legal Officer Global Legal Vice President) |
Winner |
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☆ Schneider Electric Finance, Control-Legal Affairs Team Leader: Shawn Zhao (VP, General Counsel Greater China) |
Highly commended legal team |
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☆ Beijing Calorie Information Technology Keep Legal Department Team Leader: Amy Liang (Legal Director) ☆ JD.com Legal and IP Group Team Leader: Su Wang (Corporate Vice President, Head of the Legal & IP Group) ☆ iDreamSky Technology Legal Department Team Leader: Jasmine Liu (Senior Vice President) ☆ KE.com（Beijing）Technology Data compliance team of Group Legal Center Team Leader: Chen Yan (Vice President)
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Winner |
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☆ China Pacific Insurance Legal Compliance Department Team Leader: Yuan Ye (General Manager, Legal and Compliance Department) |
Highly commended legal team |
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☆ Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Legal Affairs Department Team Leader: Dong Jianjun (General Manager, Legal Affairs Department) ☆ Saint-Gobain (China) Investment Legal Department, APAC Region Team Leader: Feng Xiaoju (General Counsel, APAC) ☆ Lilly China Legal Department Team Leader: Li Yongyi (Vice President, General Counsel) ☆ Golden Concord Group Group Legal Department Team Leader: Liu Zhao (General Manager, Legal Department) |
Winner |
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☆ IBM IP Law, Asia Pacific and Greater China Group Team Leader: Cheney Xu (Senior Counsel) |
Highly commended legal team |
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☆ China Resources Enterprise Legal and Secretariat Department Team Leader: David Cheng (General Counsel) ☆ Lilly China Legal Department Team Leader: Li Yongyi (Vice President, General Counsel) ☆ TOTO Legal Department Team Leader: Lu Yuping (Legal Director) ☆ JD.COM Legal and IP Group Team Leader: Su Wang (Corporate Vice President, Head of Legal and IP Group)
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Winner |
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☆ Sinochem International Corporation Legal Department Team Leader: Allen Jiang (General Manager, Legal Department)
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Highly commended legal team |
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☆ United Energy Group Global Legal Department Team Leader:Leslie Zhang (Vice President, General Counsel) ☆ Schneider Electric Finance, Control-Legal Affairs Team Leader: Shawn Zhao (VP, General Counsel, Greater China) ☆ Bayer (China) Legal, Patents and Compliance Department Team Leader: Zhang Xi (VP, General Counsel, Bayer Greater China) ☆ China Re Group Compliance and Legal Affairs Department Team Leader: Cao Shunming (General Counsel) ☆ Doublestar Group Legal Department Team Leader: Wang Bo (General Counsel) ☆ Haier Smart Home Global Legal Platform – Overseas Legal Team Team Leader: Mah Soon Sin (Legal Director of International Affairs) |
Winner |
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☆ Doublestar Group Legal Department Team Leader: Wang Bo (General Counsel)
Doublestar legal department reviews thousands of contracts annually, and provides hundreds of whole-process legal services for major projects such as listing, merger, restructuring, reorganization, bankruptcy and litigation. In 2018, the legal department led the completion of the acquisition of Kumho Tire, worth about US$700 million. |
Highly commended legal team |
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☆ Haier Smart Home Global Legal Platform – Overseas Legal Team Team Leader: Mah Soon Sin (Legal Director of International Affair) ☆ Sinochem International Corporation Legal Department Team Leader: Allen Jiang (General Manager, Legal Department) ☆ Fox Financial Technology (Hong Kong) Group Legal Department Team Leader: Li Yikun (Vice President, General Counsel) ☆ Shanghai Electric Group Group Legal Department Team Leader: Tong Liping (Chief Legal Officer) |
Winner |
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☆ Bank of Communications International Trust Legal and Compliance Department Team Leader: Meng Juan (General Manager, Legal and Compliance Department) |
Highly commended legal team |
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☆ Taikang Asset Management Compliance and Legal Department Team Leader: Zhou Feng (Head, Compliance and Legal Department) ☆ Agile Group The Legal Department Team Leader: Tony Shang (General Manager, Legal Department) ☆ JuneYao Group Legal and Compliance Team Team Leader: Hope Hang (General Counsel) ☆ China Literature Legal Affairs Department Team Leader: Wang Zheng (General Legal Counsel) |
Winner |
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☆ S.F. EXPRESS Group Legal Team Leader: Brian Sun (Chief Risk Officer, General Counsel)
The SF Legal Team is responsible for the “Corporate Risk Management System”, “Electronic Signing System” and “Data Privacy Protection System” of SF, which have enhanced SF’s internal control capabilities by supporting SF’s business in over 60 jurisdictions. We aim to establish a team combining both “heritage” and “innovation”, for the purpose of realizing an efficient “sharing legal support mechanism” for SF by fusing the routine with digitalization and big data. |
Highly commended legal team |
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☆ JuneYao Group Legal and Compliance Team Team Leader: Hope Hang (General Counsel) ☆ SAIC Anji Logistics Cooperation and Legal Affairs Department Team Leader: Chen Hong (Director, Cooperation and Legal Affairs Department) ☆ COSCO SHIPPING Ports Legal Department Team Leader: Michelle Hung (General Counsel, Company Secretary) ☆ GLP Investment (Shanghai) China Legal Team Team Leader: John Zeng (Managing Director, General Counsel – China) |
Winner |
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☆ China Resources Enterprise Legal and Secretariat Department Team Leader: David Cheng (General Counsel) |
Highly commended legal team |
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☆ Coca-Cola Beverages (Shanghai) Legal Department, Greater China and Korea Team Leader: Su Yan (Asia-Pacific General Counsel) ☆ Louis Vuitton (China) Legal Department Team Leader: Ivy Hu (Senior Legal Counsel) ☆ adidas Sports (China) Greater China Legal Department Team Leader: Sunny Yi (VP, General Counsel, Chief Compliance Officer) Adidas, as a global leader in the sporting goods industry, fosters athlete’s mindset through a set of behaviors that are at the core of its unique company culture – the 3Cs: Confidence, Collaboration and Creativity. The Adidas Greater China legal team strives to embrace and live the principles of “3Cs” and consistently provides business savvy, innovative and quality legal, regulatory and compliance supportsto protect and enable the multi-billion euro business and 6000+ employees at Adidas Greater China through the cross-function collaboration. In the past year, Adidas Greater China legal team has made significant contribution to execution of key strategies and projects in areas such as marketing, ecommerce, retail and sales. It has also played an important role in supporting and driving complex deals and initiatives in the Asia Pacific region. ☆ Mary Kay (China) Legal Resources Department Team Leader: Wendy Wang (China Chief Legal Officer, Global Legal Vice President) ☆ Nestle (China) Legal Department Team Leader: Dennis Wu (Regional Intellectual Property Adviser, Greater China Region) ☆ PepsiCo Legal Department, Greater China Team Leader: Wang Jie (General Counsel)
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Winner |
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☆ Wall Street English Training Center (Shanghai) Legal Department Team Leader: Li Bin (Senior Legal Counsel) |
Highly commended legal team |
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☆ JuneYao Group Legal and compliance team Team Leader: SHope Hang (General Counsel) ☆ China Beststudy Education Group Securities and Compliance Department Team Leader: Zhu Changxu (Board Secretary, Director of Compliance)
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Winner |
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☆ Shanghai Electric Power Policy and Legal Affairs Department（Legal Services Shared Center） Team Leader: Wu Ming (Chief Legal Counselor) |
Highly commended legal team |
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☆ Golden Concord Group Legal Department of the Group Team Leader: Liu Zhao(General Manager, Legal Department) ☆ United Energy Group Global Legal Department Team Leader: Leslie Zhang (Vice President, General Counsel) ☆ Shell China Legal Department Team Leader: Andrew Lim (Head of Legal) ☆ Jinko Power Legal and Compliance Team Team Leader: Kurt Tang (Vice President, General Counsel) |
Winner |
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☆ ABBOTT Greater China Legal Team Team Leader: Aaron Shao (Head of Legal, Greater China) |
Highly commended legal team |
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☆ Bayer (China) Legal, Patents and Compliance Department Team Leader: Zhang Xi (VP, General Counsel, Bayer Greater China) ☆ Lilly China Legal Department Team Leader: Li Yongyi (Vice President, General Counsel) ☆ Boehringer Ingelheim China The Chinese Market Legal Department Team Leader: Sandy Yao (Vice President, Legal) ☆ GSK China Legal Department Team Leader: Jane Ying (VP, General Counsel) |
Winner |
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☆ Haier Smart Home Global Legal Platform – Overseas Legal Team Team Leader: Mah Soon Sin (Legal Director of International Affairs) |
Highly commended legal team |
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☆ Schneider Electric Finance, Control – Legal Affairs Team Leader: Shawn Zhao (VP, General Counsel, Greater China) ☆ JuneYao Group Legal and compliance team Team Leader: Hope Hang (General Counsel) ☆ Festo (China) Legal and Compliance Department Team Leader: Tony Dong (General Counsel, Chief Compliance Officer, Business Region Greater China)
Since its establishment, it has set up various important policies on corporate legal and compliance, and improved the company’s risk control process; created various company contract templates and supported business team to negotiate agreements with global strategic clients; handled over 100 significant litigations/arbitrations and compliance cases; provided legal and compliance training to employees and business partners; and provided professional legal support for all significant investment projects in China conducted by Festo Group. ☆ Sinochem International Corporation Legal department Team Leader: Allen Jiang (General Manager, Legal Department) ☆ China Baowu Steel Group Legal department Team Leader: Shen Yan (Deputy General Counsel, Director, Legal Department) ☆ NIO Legal department Team Leader: Liu Fang (Vice President, General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer)
NIO Legal Team is responsible for NIO’s global legal operations and has four international offices. Its headquarters is located in Shanghai. It supports the company’s global overall businesses ranging from strategic financing, cooperation and M&A projects, IP strategy and implementation, overall daily operations to compliance matters. Most of its members are senior lawyers with extensive working experience from top international law firms and multinational corporations. NIO Legal Team has a clear understanding of the company’s long-term strategy, objectives, and overall business operations, and possesses a strong ability to identify risks and solve problems, and to overall manage complex projects by engaging in active cross-functional communication, collaborative teamwork and swift response. NIO is the pioneer in the new energy automobile industry. NIO Legal Team played an important role in supporting the company in its global organization setup, strategy formulation, innovative business model setup, IP strategy implementation and industrial compliance, etc. |
Winner |
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☆ China Re Group Compliance and Legal Affairs Department Team Leader: Cao Shunming (General Counsel) |
Highly commended legal team |
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☆ Taikang Asset Management Compliance and Legal Department Team Leader: Zhou Feng (Head, Compliance and Legal Department) ☆ China Pacific Insurance Legal Compliance Departments Team Leader: Yuan Ye (General Manager, Legal and Compliance Department) |
Winner |
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☆ JD.COM Legal and IP Group Team Leader: Su Wang (Corporate Vice President, Head of the Legal and IP Group)
We continuously explore emerging fields with the company’s business development, raise feasible legal opinions, timely prevent risks, and provide all-round support for business decisions. Currently we have extended our legal service to Indonesia, Thailand, France, United States of America, Russia and other countries, helping the company to implement its globalization strategy. |
Highly commended legal team |
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☆ Meituan Dianping Legal Department Team Leader: Song Zhe (General Counsel) ☆ Fox Financial Technology (Hong Kong) Group Legal Department Team Leader: Li Yikun (Vice President, General Counsel) ☆ Tencent Legal Department Team Leader: Brent Irwin (General Counsel) ☆ Sina Corporation Legal Department Team Leader: Helen Gu (General Manager, Legal Department)
The Legal Department actively participates in industry events. It follows the hot issues of relevant corporate legal practice closely and conducts in-depth theoretical research and policy analysis on the most updated and relevant regulations and government policies. In the meantime, it also tries its best to transform the research results into industry influence. Moreover, it focuses on giving play to the advantages of the internet industry, and actively completes the innovation in legal work mode with the help of technology enhancement. Facing the continual development of internet technology and business model innovation, the Legal Department cooperates concordantly and reacts calmly when facing the difficulties of realizing business values and balancing the legal risks. Its ultimate goal is to provide the most professional, the most comprehensive and the most efficient legal support for the entire group. |
Winner |
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☆ Tencent Legal Department Team Leader: Brent Irwin (General Counsel) |
Highly commended legal team |
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☆ Riot Games China Legal Department Team Leader: Emi Zhao (Principal Counsel for Greater China and SEA) ☆ iDreamSky Technology Legal Department Team Leader: Jasmine Liu (Senior Vice President) ☆ Alibaba Group YOUKU YOUKU Legal Team Team Leader: Li Wei (Legal Director) ☆ Perfect World Investment and Holding Group Legal Department Team Leader: Ma Yihan (Vice President, General Counsel)
We are actively engaged in every business development at the initial phase. We not only provide comprehensive legal opinions, but also contribute innovative solutions both legitimate and feasible to frontier business that is fast changing. We are hard-core in supporting the company’s complex commercial negotiation and dispute resolution. |
Winner |
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☆ Agile Group The Legal Department Team Leader: Tony Shang (General Manager, Legal Department)
The legal department of Agile Group has completed over 100 newly registered trademarks, and developed or revised a number of systems and guidelines and over 100 standard contracts. Agile Group’s legal department WeChat public account, which is run independently by the team, is influential in corporate legal affairs. |
Highly commended legal team |
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☆ Shanghai Construction Group Legal Department Team Leader: Xu Haifeng (Head, Legal Department) ☆ Shanghai Vanke Legal and Risk Control Team Team Leader: Liu Juan (General Counsel) ☆ Logan Group Risk Management Department Team Leader: Glock Xie (Legal Affairs Director) ☆ Yango Group Legal and Risk Management Department Team Leader: Wang Yiqun (Deputy General Manager, Legal and Risk Management Department)
Since the establishment of the department, it has actively improved the legal management system and risk control system, strengthened the intervention of risk control in advance, and gradually established a full-process legal risk control management system. |
Winner |
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☆ Besttone Holding Legal Department Team Leader: Ricky Chen (Legal Director) |
Highly commended legal team |
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☆ IBM IP Law, Asia Pacific and Greater China Group Team Leader: Cheney Xu (Senior Counsel) ☆ Yangtze Memory Technologies (YMTC) Group Legal Department Team Leader: Winston Zhao (Senior Vice President, General Counsel) ☆ Qualcomm (China) Legal Team Team Leader:Zhao Bin (SVP, Legal and Government Affairs) ☆ Dell (China) Legal Team Team Leader: Gordon Liu (Vice President, General Counsel, Greater China Region) |
As part of its enduring endeavour to comply with the legal and regulatory requirements and implement prudent practices in the banking industry, the Operation Risk, Legal & Compliance Division (the Division) is entrusted by Nanyang Commercial Bank (the Bank) to provide professional legal and compliance advice and support the operations of the bank.
NIO Legal Team is responsible for NIO’s global legal operations and has four international offices. Its headquarters is located in Shanghai. It supports the company’s global overall businesses ranging from strategic financing, cooperation and M&A projects, IP strategy and implementation, overall daily operations to compliance matters. Most of its members are senior lawyers with extensive working experience from top international law firms and multinational corporations.
Beike Data Security Team is an in-house team led by Chen Yan, which mainly focuses on internet security, data privacy and data protection, with other team members including Yang Fan and Wang Yan. In 2018, Beike Data Security Team built up a solid data security and privacy system from scratch by way of risk identification, guidance and policy drafting, operation methods rectification and internal trainings. Beike Data Security Team has cast aside material risks in relation to data privacy and security against Beike and brought about better awareness of data compliance within the company, thererby, ensuring Beike’s business operations are better protected.
The Legal and IP Group of JD.com has built a comprehensive intellectual property protection system with patent layout covering all core technology fields such as data processing, artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing, financial payment, security protection, intelligent logistics, etc. Overseas patent layout covers the United States, Japan, Canada, Southeast Asia and other countries and regions; Overseas trademark layout covers more than 40 countries and regions on six continents, including the United States, Europe, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, etc. Various measurers have been used to monitor the violations of intellectual property rights in real time, which could stop infringing acts in a timely and effective manner.
Upon its establishment, the Legal Department of Sinochem International Corporation has been committed to surpassing itself by consistently delivering professional, comprehensive, prompt, efficient and inventive legal services with uncompromising quality, and is competent enough to support the Sinochem’s 178 subsidiaries, branch offices, and other affiliated entities located in various countries and regions. In the past year, the department has made significant contributions to a series of onshore and offshore M&A, reorganization, spin-off and financing projects of the company. In order to assist the company to achieve its strategic target of transforming and developing into a world leading fine chemicals manufacturer, the department promptly expand its service scope to new areas such as compliance and IP.
Established in 2013, the Doublestar legal department improved a full-process information-based compliance platform that catalysed the business of the company. It provides legal guidance for the strategic positioning of the company, legal support for transformation and upgrade, and pre-compliance review for the healthy and rapid development of the company.
Embracing a “Legal Technology+” spirit, the SF Legal Team provides comprehensive legal support for SF, which covers intellectual property, capital market and corporate risk management. In terms of intellectual property, SF owns the second largest IP assets among express delivery companies in the world. In the area of capital markets, SF Legal Team supported the completion of several big deals, including the issuance of RMB5.8 billion convertible bonds and the acquisition of DHL Supply Chain China.
PepsiCo Greater China Legal Department is an efficient in-house team providing full legal services to PepsiCo’s beverage, snack and nutrition business. In facing present challenges – changing consumer preferences, increasingly active regulatory environments, the ever-present cost pressures, competitive marketplace, etc, – the PepsiCo Legal Team with their sharp legal and business acumen, have become a part of the process at the source, leveraging innovation and digitalization, showing the spirit of determination and enthusiasm to collaborate and execute with precision, which enables the team to effectively manage the challenges and thrive, adding unique values to the business and supporting the clients in achieving their “Faster, Stronger and Better” goals.
Established in 1997, China Beststudy Education Group is the largest K-12 after-school education service provider in southern China and the fifth largest nationwide. To make the group publicly listed, the legal team explored multiple paths. Without any precedent, the team and the agencies established the VIE structure and assisted the group to obtain permissions. Before the hearing, the government introduced the draft of the Law for Promoting Private Education of the PRC and the State Council Opinion 80, which caused all the education companies stocks to plunge. However, the team assisted lawyers in completing the regulatory interviews and obtaining feedback from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. With the strong support of the team, the group successfully submitted the A-1 form within three months and listed in the last week of December 2018, becoming the first K-12 after-school education service provider listed on the main board of Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
The Legal and Compliance Department of Festo Business Region Greater China was founded in 2016. It is composed of the General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer (Tony Dong), two Legal Counsels (Margaret Liu, Hatty Huang) and two Compliance Officers (Maria Jiang, Yu Wenjuan). The team is responsible for various legal and compliance affairs of all companies in the business region, mainly including corporate governance, contract management, dispute settlement, compliance management, IP management, legal and compliance training, etc.
The Legal and IP Group of JD.COM supports legal affairs related to a business system involving 200 thousand people. Related business covered includes daily business compliance, investment and acquisition, dispute resolution, legal research and intellectual property, and many other business types.
The Legal Department of SINA Group is divided into various teams based on different functions that it supplies and each specific line of business that it supports. It consists of seven different teams – investment and M&A team, dispute resolution team, IP team, general corporate team, policy research team, government relation team and contract management team.
Perfect World is a pioneer in diverse business areas such as games, e-sports, movie & TV, education, cartoons, literature, etc. Perfect World’s Legal Department is a small team but exquisite. We made ourselves a legal team who think like product managers and are technology driven, and we are always ready to make proper legal preparation prior to business expansion. We contribute great value in safeguarding Perfect World’s strategy implementation and business development.
Agile Group’s legal department has a total of 69 employees. The headquarters has implemented vertical management of the 11 regional legal departments. All of them have worked in well-known real estate enterprises and law firms in China. In 2019, The legal department of Agile Group followed up a number of domestic and foreign investment projects in various industries. Assisted in handling financing projects worth over 10 billion yuan. The total amount of savings from newly added litigation and arbitration cases is hundreds of millions of yuan, the self-acting agency rate is up to 95%, and the active litigation case winning rate is about 99%.
The Legal and Risk Management Center of Yango Group, which is also known as Yango Legal Department, is the headquarters of the risk management organization of Yango Group, a high-growth boutique real estate operator of the world’s top 500 companies and a company listed on the main board of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. It manages nearly 30 regional companies’ Legal and Risk Management Departments of Yango Group.
