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 2021-22. 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.
Legal team profiles were provided and written by the winning team themselves and have not been independently verified.
WINNER
BAIDULEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Li Yanjie
Baidu’s legal department focuses on Baidu’s products and cooperates with other departments to build efficient, professional, and systematic legal compliance frameworks for the company’s continued development and innovation. The legal department continually researches matters of professional interest and legislative provisions, responding to new legal issues and cases involving groundbreaking commercial situations. In this way, it contributes to the development of beneficial and orderly industry and judicial decision-making. Many of the cases in which the team has been involved have been selected by the Supreme People’s Court and local People’s Courts as leading cases. |
The Legal Department of Baidu is mainly responsible for the comprehensive legal support of Baidu’s mobile ecological business group and its health business group. It also deals with varied civil and criminal litigation, trademark, domain name and other IP disputes.
WINNER
YONYOU NETWORK TECHNOLOGYLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Geng Fan |
HIGHLY COMMENDED
BGI GenomicsLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Xu Qian
BGI is committed to reducing birth defects, strengthening cancer prevention and control, curing infection through precision treatment, developing precision medicine, and reducing the harm caused by major diseases through genetic technology. The legal department of BGI Genomics provides effective support for the company’s strategic decision-making and global business compliance. Its team members are graduates of well-known domestic and overseas law schools and have extensive experience in the law relating to medicine and life sciences. |
BGI Genomics Co. Ltd. is a leading biological enterprise in China in the field of gene therapy and engineering. It is also one of the world’s leading technology and precision medicine service operators, with business in over 100 countries and regions around the world.
SDIC Venture CapitalLEGAL AFFAIRS DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Tian Ye |
WINNER
BEIJING CHJ AUTOMOTIVE TECHNOLOGYLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Xu Dian |
HIGHLY COMMENDED
BaiduTRANSACTION AND COMPLIANCE LEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Wu Mengyi
The Baidu Transaction and Compliance team provides legal support to the company’s M&A, international and domestic capital markets, and overseas legal interests. It is also involved in the company’s AI business, including artificial intelligence, cloud services, autonomous driving, and smart hardware. Over the years, the team members have been providing strong legal support to the various capital market activities of Baidu. In 2021, the team played a major role in Baidu’s secondary listing in Hong Kong. The team continuously explores best practices in legal compliance in new business, facilitating rapid and healthy business development through efficient compliance. Facing new competition and many challenges, the team will continue to enhance legal compliance protection, and endeavour to adapt the legal compliance system to new legal and regulatory policies and industry changes. |
BilibiliLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Liu Nan |
China Resources LandLEGAL AND COMPLIANCE DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Liu Zhong |
KE HoldingsLISTING AND COMPLIANCE TEAMTeam Leader: Chen Yan KE Holdings’ listing compliance team listed KE Holdings in the US and Hong Kong, and continues to oversee corporate governance, securities law compliance, public disclosure and jurisdictional compliance. The listing compliance team assisted the company to successfully list on the New York Stock Exchange and The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong. With existing internal systems as a template, the listing compliance team formulated rules and policies, such as guidelines on trading in KE Holdings securities, policies on related party transactions, and an approval system for disclosable matters. This has ensured that corporate governance and public disclosure meet legislative and regulatory requirements. The listing compliance team pays close attention to changes of domestic and foreign laws, regulations and policies related to capital markets to address their impact on the company. |
New Oriental Education & Technology GroupLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Guan Rui
By providing legal protection and legal support for the group’s development, and with its expertise and clear commercial objectives, the legal department fully participates in strategic investment projects to ensure their stable operation. The department designs transaction structures, carries out pre-investment due diligence, ensures collaboration across all divisions and manages post-investment risk. The legal team has 10 members, all of whom have master’s degrees or above. Its excellence and professionalism have been recognised by all departments and leaders within the group. The legal team was named as the team of excellence from 2016 to 2019. |
As the group’s legal service, support and management department, the Legal Department of the New Oriental Education and Technology Group is committed to building effective legal support and legal risk prevention and control systems for the Group’s decision-making processes and operations.
Sensetime GroupLEGAL AFFAIRS DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Zhang Wang
The legal affairs department of the SenseTime Group serves the group’s global sustainable development strategy and provides professional support in areas such as capital markets, data, dispute resolution, contract review, intellectual property rights, standards and qualifications and export control compliance. Since being set up, the department has contributed to a number of major projects at home and abroad, helped establish strategic relationships with multiple partners, and supported the successful listing of the group in Hong Kong. The legal affairs department employs over 70 people, most of whom have at least a master’s degree in law. Some staff are based outside China to provide a guarantee of professionalism for the group’s overseas market expansion plans. The department is committed to establishing a global legal team with advanced business and professional skills. Through the introduction of an efficient business operation management system and relying on an advanced digital management platform, it ensures its effective and efficient performance and wholehearted contribution to the sustainable development of all group business lines. |
Shanghai Soulgate TechnologySOUL APP LEGAL TEAMTeam Leader: Zhou Jing |
Sina CorporationLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Helen Gu
SINA Group is an online media company serving the global Chinese community. It has two major business systems, Sina vertical applications, including Sina News, Sina Finance and Sina Sports, and Sina Weibo, with hundreds of millions of registered users worldwide. As the SINA Group has grown, the legal department has expanded into a team of over 50 counsel in group headquarters, local network stations, and holding subsidiaries. Led by Helen Gu, general counsel, the legal department undertakes a variety of functions such as direct management, online management and on-site work matters. The department advises SINA Group on all aspects of legal affairs, including M&A and investment, capital markets, dispute resolution, data security, antitrust, IP management including trademarks, domain names, patents and software copyright, contract review, licence and qualification management, business compliance, risk control, government relations and policy research. |
WINNER
CHENXIFUNDSLEGAL & COMPLIANCE DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Zhao Li |
HIGHLY COMMENDED
A-Living Smart City ServicesLEGAL CENTRETeam Leader: Gong Lin |
Beijing CHJ Automotive TechnologyLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Xu Dian |
CCB International (China)LEGAL & COMPLIANCE DIVISIONTeam Leader: Yu Shixuan |
China Resources LandLEGAL AND COMPLIANCE DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Liu Zhong |
CRRC Zhuzhou LocomotiveLEGAL AND COMPLIANCE TEAMTeam Leader: Pan Zhuqing The legal and compliance department of CRRC Zhuzhou Locomotive was set up in 2014. Since then, it has fully supported the company’s mission of supplying China’s rail transport systems and equipment to the world by growing internationally. The department provides professional and effective legal support to the company and its subsidiaries in mergers and acquisitions, risk management systems, compliance, litigation and arbitration and domestic and foreign market projects. The department successfully introduced the legal and compliance management system and the business collaboration mechanism at the company and helped it obtain several major orders in international markets. |
KE HoldingsLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Chen Yan Comprising over 50 members in eight legal teams, namely the platform legal team, the patent and software team, the trademark and copyright team, the corporate governance team, the investment and financing legal team, the listing compliance team and two business support teams, KE Holdings’ Legal Department provides services to the company in litigation, intellectual property rights, investment and financing, data protection, compliance, business legal support and legal research. In recent years, the KE Holdings Legal Department led or helped accomplish a number of major projects, including the company’s red chip restructuring in 2018; its private placement in 2019 and its listing on the New York Stock Exchange in 2020 with proceeds of USD2.4 billion. Also in 2020, the legal team leading KE Holdings became the first residential service platform to obtain both ISO/IEC 27001 information security management systems and ISO/IEC27701 privacy information management systems accreditation in China. |
Taikang Insurance GroupLEGAL AND COMPLIANCE DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Jeffrey King |
Tencent TechnologyLEGAL CENTRE OF WECHATTeam Leader: Huang Jiahui |
WINNER
CHINA NATIONAL OIL AND GAS EXPLORATION AND DEVELOPMENTLEGAL AFFAIRS DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Yu Haitao China National Oil and GAS Exploration and Development Company (CNODC), a subsidiary of CNPC in charge of its overseas oil and gas business investment, is the leading force behind China’s Belt and Road initiative and internationalisation strategy. During more than 20 years of its international business, CNODC has built a legal team with exceptional professional knowledge, outstanding business competence and mastery of international regulation. Some 90% of the team hold at least a master’s degree, nearly 50% are company lawyers and one-third have overseas experience with fluency in multiple foreign languages. In recent years, the team has focused on CNODC’s core business and strengthened the construction of legal protection systems; safeguarding the company’s rights and effective legal risk prevention; system construction and vigorous promotion of overseas compliance and corporate governance, and improvement of capability and legal value creation. |
HIGHLY COMMENDED
AbbottLEGAL TEAM, GREATER CHINATeam Leader: Aaron Shao |
Elex TechnologyLEGAL AND COMPLIANCE DIVISIONTeam Leader: Feng Ruili ELEX’s cross-border legal team of eight members provides legal protection for the company’s game development and global publishing businesses, and daily operations. Its key responsibilities include global game distribution compliance, data protection, personal privacy compliance, intellectual property rights protection, dispute resolution, labour and employment matters and state-owned asset compliance. The team is involved in compliance work in nearly 200 countries, jurisdictions and regions around the world. In the past year, the company and the team have had to face the fluctuating fortunes of the global game market and increasingly fierce competition in the gaming industry. There have also been increasingly strict compliance requirements for data protection and personal privacy introduced in various countries. However, the team has benefitted from reasonable workflow procedures, as well as helping to introduce compliance and risk control systems, such as the compliance support system for global publishing and distribution and the global data compliance work support system. ELEX’s cross-border legal team is able to provide complete and timely solutions for the company’s various decision-making processes and businesses in the complex and ever-changing overseas gaming market. |
IBM (China)GREATER CHINA GROUP LAW DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Jin Hao |
Inspur Electronic Information IndustryCOMPLIANCE DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Fan Lei |
Luk Fook Holdings (International)LEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Irene Cheung Luk Fook Group is principally engaged in the sourcing, designing, wholesaling, trademark licensing and retailing of gold and platinum jewellery and gem-set jewellery products. It currently operates about 2,800 jewellery retail stores around the world. The group’s legal affairs department is composed of legal teams from mainland China (including Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan and Guangzhou) and Hong Kong Special Administrative Region led by senior in-house lawyers with many years of legal and management experience. The team provides various cross-border compliance services for the group’s businesses around the world. In response to the group’s business needs, the legal teams have set up dedicated task groups for contracts, projects, intellectual property, shops and properties, brand licensees and suppliers, in order to identify legal risks of the group in different countries/regions, and deal with and resolve cross-border legal issues accordingly, safeguarding the development of the Group. |
Ping An GroupLEGAL AND COMPLIANCE DEPARTMENT (OVERSEAS)Team Leader: Danny Kan |
Xiaomi CorporationLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Liu Zhen Xiaomi International’s legal team is responsible for the legal compliance work of the Xiaomi Corporation’s overseas business, including overseas sales, consumer rights and interests protection, anti-monopoly, privacy, and human resources. It also handles the corporation’s export control compliance. At present, it has a team of lawyers covering over 100 countries and regions around the world, supporting the Xiaomi Group to expand overseas markets and achieve rapid growth. In 2021, the team successfully helped the corporation win Xiaomi’s lawsuit against the United States government, and won many major lawsuits in Europe and Southeast Asia. Throughout the year, the Xiaomi International legal team helped to achieve localisation and compliance in 22 countries, providing strong legal assurance for localisation and expansion of the international business of the corporation. |
ZeekrLEGAL AND COMPLIANCETeam Leader: Liu Fang ZEEKR, as the premium smart EV brand of the Geely Group, was established in April 2021. Its legal and compliance department also came into being and handles ZEEKR’s global legal compliance matters, covering such areas as strategic investment and financing, international business, dispute resolution, IP and data and general compliance. The department has nearly 70 professionals around the world, all with many years’ working experience in leading law firms and companies. In the past year, ZEEKR’s legal and compliance department has seen remarkable achievements, providing professional and effective legal support to ZEEKR’s major investment and financing projects and legal compliance affairs. The department has established a complete basic legal compliance system, assisted in strategic co-operation and financing of nearly RMB10 billion, categorised and drafted hundreds of contract templates, jointly completed various ISO accreditations and several major governmental review projects and handled civil and commercial disputes. The department has played an important role in ZEEKR’s rapid but stable development in this initial stage of its existence. |
WINNER
SHANGHAI SOULGATE TECHNOLOGYSOUL APP LEGAL TEAMTeam Leader: Zhou Jing The Soul APP legal department has established a complete legal compliance system covering such areas of practice as capital markets, data compliance, intellectual property, business compliance, contracts and negotiations, labour relations, disputes and crisis management. This has enabled the team, under the leadership of Zhou Jing, general counsel, to provide comprehensive legal support to the Group and achieve professional excellence in those fields. As a social platform with hundreds of millions of users, the Soul APP legal department tightly focuses on data compliance and privacy protection, and has achieved remarkable success in its five years of existence. It has completed the establishment and implementation of the data compliance system and strengthened the protection of user data throughout its complete life cycle, based on a data classification system and security management mechanism. The team has thus fully implemented the new regulatory framework in a timely way. In 2021, the legal department completed its ISO 27001 accreditation, was placed in class III in the filing of information system security protection classification regime and was awarded high scores in the personal information protection compliance assessment released by public media, ranking in the first-tier. |
HIGHLY COMMENDED
Beijing Kingsoft Cloud Network TechnologyLEGAL DEPARTMENT – DATA & PRIVACY PROTECTION TEAMTeam Leader: Luo Liuhu Luo Liuhu serves as Data Protection Officer at Kingsoft Cloud. Team members Zhang Yuxi, Chen Jianing, and Qian Chunyan, have great theoretical and practical experience in privacy protection. With the team’s hard work, Kingsoft Cloud achieved US TRUSTe enterprise privacy certification and is considered a leader in the MSCI-ESG index for privacy and data security. |
China Pacific Insurance (Group)LEGAL AND COMPLIANCE DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Yuan Ye |
Elex TechnologyLEGAL AND COMPLIANCE DIVISIONTeam Leader: Feng Ruili Elex Technology’s four member-strong Data and Privacy Compliance Team, facing complex global data compliance demands and increasing legislative and regulatory requirements, have responded proactively by formulating compliance plans in advance. The team is involved in the investigation and diagnosis of data and information security systems, provides an internal compliance mechanism for each project and implements secondary supervision procedures to ensure strict adherence to compliance and business standards in the company’s cross-border dealings, game publishing business, and cross-border data transmissions. In establishing a data compliance support system for overseas game distribution, the team actively promoted the incorporation of data compliance in daily workflows. The team carries out legal research in the European Union, North America, the United Kingdom and mainland China and formulates specific data cross-border and personal privacy data compliance plans to comply with local regulations. This assists the game products division in incorporating systemic compliance settings, thus ensuring games run without interruption. |
Haier Smart HomeGLOBAL LEGAL DEPARTMENT – COMPLIANCE/DATA PRIVACY TEAMTeam Leader: James Liu The compliance and data privacy team of Haier Smart Home global legal department coordinated with other data compliance teams including those from the USA, Australia, New Zealand, Europe and Asia to complete global data protection systems, formulate compliance frameworks, implement policies and procedures and improve life-cycle data management. The team further provided comprehensive guidance and support for all employees, following the principle of “From rules to capability and then to culture”. The team prevented frequent data privacy infringement and provided effective protection for Haier’s global business operations. |
KE HoldingsPLATFORM LEGAL TEAMTeam Leader: Chen Yan The KE Holdings platform legal team, with compliance requirements at its core, promotes data governance to ensure the accuracy and security of industry data. With app privacy governance as a base, the team promotes the protection of informed consent and empowerment for C-end consumers. With training and platform rules at its heart, the legal department promotes respect and empowerment for small B-end industry practitioners. The platform legal team enabled KE Holdings in 2020 to become the first domestic residential service platform to obtain dual ISO 27001 and ISO 27701 accreditations. The platform legal team also actively promoted KE Holdings’ participation in the writing of national standard House Rental and Sale app modules, such as the Information Security Technology – Guidelines for Personal Information Notices and Consent and Information Security Technology – Basic Specifications for Collecting Personal Information by Mobile Internet Applications. This project was led by the National Information Security Standardisation Technical Committee, and KE Holdings contributed its commercial practical experience. |
OPPOCOMPLIANCE DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Hei Hongbo |
Sephora ChinaLEGAL AND GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Ashley Zhu The Sephora China data protection and new technology law team, as one of the five practice areas of the legal and government affairs department, has fully adapted to the application of innovative technologies and digital transformation in the business world. Such exposure gives the team up-to-date experience, but comes with many challenges. A data driven strategy and full data life cycle management have played a vital role in the success of Sephora’s digitalisation. The team has an intensive interaction with other functions and departments, which has helped it assist in the company-wide roll-out of data security and privacy awareness. The team has considerable knowledge of the digital world, and is able professionally and knowledgeably to speak across the digital and high-tech divide to discuss encryption, API and SDK with the security team. It can also communicate data flow and mapping with IT professionals. The team’s dedication to data protection anchors Sephora’s digital innovation in the future. |
Tencent TechnologyLEGAL CENTRE OF WECHATTeam Leader: Huang Jiahui |
WINNER
CHINA INTERNATIONAL CAPITAL CORPORATIONLEGAL TEAM OF CICCTeam Leader: Joe Zhou |
HIGHLY COMMENDED
A-Living Smart City ServicesLEGAL CENTRETeam Leader: Gong Lin |
Alibaba CloudLITIGATION AND DISPUTE RESOLUTION TEAMTeam Leader: Zheng Mengyuan
The team successfully handled a number of such cases and thereby established industry guidelines. Some of these cases were selected as leading cases by the Supreme People’s Court, featured as such in the World Intellectual Property Monthly, and published in mainstream media. The team has taken part in legislative lobbying and pushed to embody Industry best practices in law. Its proposals were incorporated in a number of judicial interpretations by the Supreme People’s Court. The team is also heavily involved in promoting dozens of optimisation features on the business side of the company. |
Alibaba Cloud ranks as the number one cloud computing company in the Asia-Pacific region and number three in the world. Faced with the gap between the cloud computing industry and legal rules that significantly lagged, the Alibaba Cloud litigation and dispute resolution team have been committed to establishing robust industry guidelines through landmark litigation cases.
BaiduLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Li Yanjie |
Centre Testing International GroupLEGAL COMPLIANCE DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Bao Aiwu |
China Cinda Asset ManagementLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Li Qingliang |
China Resources LandLEGAL AND COMPLIANCE DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Liu Zhong |
CIFI Holdings (Group)LEGAL RISK CONTROL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Ding Zhaohui |
Mango Excellent MediaLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Zou Xuzi |
WINNER
SINA CORPORATIONDISPUTE RESOLUTION TEAM OF LEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Amy Zhang The litigation and dispute resolution department of SINA Corporation comprises several teams responsible for domestic litigation, cross-border litigation, IP and competition enforcement lawsuits and non-litigation disputes. The team provides oversight and guidance in dispute resolutions involving Sina, Weibo, their subsidiaries and invested companies, in jurisdictions such as China, the USA and European countries. The work touches on many legal areas, including TMT, entertainment and sports, data protection, intellectual property, the confidentiality of business information, corporate litigation, labour disputes, competition and antitrust, and cybercrime. Our team settles thousands of cases every year favourably for the company. The hard work of the legal team resulted in substantial revenue savings. This included a proactive campaign to protect major business and innovative company products, leading to IP competition lawsuits. Because of the team’s efforts, several of these cases are regarded as landmark decisions affecting fast-developing areas of law. The department made significant progress in cross-border disputes by building up the cross-border legal team effectively to communicate with overseas counsel and precisely interpret foreign law as it applied to a Chinese company involved in complex international disputes. Thanks to its co-ordination, the cross-border legal team assisted management to adopt successful strategies even late in the litigation process. As a result, the company secured favourable litigation outcomes that financially greatly benefitted it. Over the past year, the legal department achieved great success, despite encountering considerable challenges in litigation, arbitration and enforcement proceedings, in many jurisdictions such as the Netherlands, the USA, the BVI, the Cayman Islands, and the HKSAR. |
HIGHLY COMMENDED
China Gezhouba Group Overseas InvestmentLEGAL AND COMPLIANCE DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Cao Haiyang |
China Machinery Engineering CorporationLEGAL AND RISK MANAGEMENT DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Duan Xiangwei
A number of overseas dispute cases were successfully resolved by the legal and risk management department of China Machinery Engineering Corporation (CMEC), thus preventing major economic loss for the company and effectively maintaining the company’s reputation in the international market. In 2021, the legal department saved or avoided over RMB1 billion of loss for the company through dispute resolution, fully demonstrating the value-creating role of the law. |
China National Oil And Gas Exploration And DevelopmentLEGAL AFFAIRS DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Yu Haitao |
Continental Holding ChinaCHINA LAW DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Xie Limin |
ICBC InternationalLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Khor Han Wai |
Fullshare HoldingsLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Bill Zhou |
Luk Fook Holdings (International)LEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Irene Cheung Luk Fook Group is principally engaged in the sourcing, designing, wholesaling, trademark licensing and retailing of gold and platinum jewellery and gem-set jewellery products. It currently operates about 2,800 jewellery retail stores around the world. The group’s legal affairs department is composed of legal teams from mainland China (including Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan and Guangzhou) and Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. It actively follows and responses to the changes in the external environment and policies. By providing professional and practical legal opinions and resolutions, it offers compliance protection to the global cross-border business of the group, and helps it cope with various abrupt changes and dispute resolutions effectively. The team received accolades for their legal expertise and professionalism in the related legal field, including receiving the “2020 Winner of the Year – Employment & Labour” of In-House Counsel Awards by China Business Law Journal. |
TCL IndustriesIP TEAMTeam Leader: Karl Yeh |
WINNER
BEIJING YUANLI EDUCATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGYLEGAL YUANTeam Leader: Jia Zheng |
HIGHLY COMMENDED
Beijing CHJ Automotive TechnologyLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Xu Dian |
Beijing International Resort Theme Park And Resort Management BranchLEGAL AND COMPLIANCETeam Leader: Shawn Yun |
Continental Holding ChinaCHINA LAW DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Xie Limin |
ICBC InternationalLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Khor Han Wai |
Kweichow Moutai (China)LEGAL AND COMPLIANCE DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Yang Jun |
Taikang Insurance GroupLEGAL AND COMPLIANCE DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Jeffrey King |
WINNER
TCL INDUSTRIESIP TEAMTeam Leader: Karl Yeh |
HIGHLY COMMENDED
Beijing CHJ Automotive TechnologyLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Xu Dian |
Beijing Yuanli Education Science And TechnologyLEGAL YUANTeam Leader: Jia Zheng |
BilibiliLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Liu Nan |
Foxconn Industrial InternetDIVISION OF LEGAL AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTYTeam Leader: Eric Xie |
Haier Smart HomeGLOBAL LEGAL DEPARTMENT-IP TEAMTeam Leader: Roger Zhang The IP team of the global legal department fully mobilised the global regional teams in making significant progress in the construction of a SEP management system and co-operated with its counterparts to promote the revision and improvement of SEP rules. The team efficiently handled major patent disputes, monitored and prevented IP infringement on many occasions and provided effective legal protection for Haier’s global business operations. |
Ping An Medical And Healthcare ManagementLEGAL AND COMPLIANCETeam Leader: Zeng Ni |
Shanghai Junshi BiosciencesLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Ye Peili |
Xiaomi CorporationLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Liu Zhen |
WINNER
LUK FOOK HOLDINGS (INTERNATIONAL)LEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Irene Cheung The Luk Fook Group is engaged in the sourcing, designing, wholesaling, trademark licensing and retailing of gold and platinum jewellery and gem-set jewellery products. It currently operates about 2,800 jewellery retail stores around the world. The group’s legal affairs department is involved in many areas including intellectual property matters, through its dedicated intellectual property task group. This group carries out matters from the acquisition of intellectual property rights such as trademarks, copyrights and patents, to subsequent maintenance and legal rights protection. It manages the group’s global intellectual property matters, combatting infringements and safeguarding the brand value of the group. Some of the department’s rights protection cases have been included as “Typical Cases of Trademarks” in the Annual Report of the Supreme People’s Court on Intellectual Property Cases (2018) and included in the “Top Ten Typical Cases of Trademarks in 2019” by the Trademark Association of Shenzhen. Such recognition is confirmation of the professionalism of the team in the field of intellectual property. |
HIGHLY COMMENDED
Future TVINTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND LEGAL TEAMTeam Leader: Flower Yang |
Kweichow Moutai (China)LEGAL AND COMPLIANCE DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Yang Jun |
Mango Excellent MediaLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Zou Xuzi |
Shanghai Soulgate TechnologySOUL APP LEGAL TEAMTeam Leader: Zhou Jing |
Victoria’s SecretBRAND PROTECTIONTeam Leader: Jessica Li |
Weibo CorporationWEIBO LEGAL TEAMTeam Leader: Fan Ye
Founded in 2009, WeiBo is the leading social media platform in China. Parallel with its business development, WeiBo’s legal team has grown and expanded. It provides a full range of legal services in such areas as product risk control, data security, personal information protection, capital market operations and policy research. The team also has responsibility for the overall intellectual property protection of the group and has established a multi-layered intellectual property management system for patents, trademarks, copyrights and domain names. Over the years, the team has steadily improved its professional quality and cross-departmental co-operation and has continually broadened its range of legal services. It has also firmly grasped the balance between commercial demands and legal risks to support the company’s innovative business model and its operational ecology development. |
WINNER
BAIDULEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Li Yanjie |
HIGHLY COMMENDED
37 Interactive EntertainmentLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Lai Qiqi |
Cht.Shengqu GamesINTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LEGAL TEAMTeam Leader: Ma Haoguang
The CHT—Shengqu Games intellectual property team, provides all-round intellectual property legal support for the operation, licensing and protection of Legend of Mir 2, World of Legend, Dragon Nest and other phenomenal gaming products. The team has put in place an intellectual property strategic management and protection system, an intellectual property compliance and risk control legal system, a 360-degree infringement monitoring and protection system, and launched a long-term intellectual property incentive mechanism for the company. In dealing with many cases, such as those involving Legend of Mir 2, the intellectual property management team has not only protected the interests of the company, but has also demonstrated the effectiveness of China’s judicial process.
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KE HoldingsINTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND LITIGATION MANAGEMENT TEAMTeam Leader: Chen Yan The KE Holdings Intellectual Property and Litigation Management Team has built an integrated protection system for trademarks and copyright, and established a complete patent management system. By the end of 2021, KE Holdings had registered intellectual property in 30 countries and regions around the world. Its trademark Lianjia has been recognised as a well-known trademark. KE Holdings also had over 300 patents registered in its name. The Litigation Management Team introduced the management model of COE + city BP collaboration and built a litigation case management system to collect, disclose and use litigation data in a unified manner, through the scientific management of litigation data and making major litigation risks discoverable, traceable and effectively managed. |
PearsonLEGAL AND COMPLIANCETeam Leader: Carrie Tang Pearson is the world’s leading learning company, with expertise in educational courseware and assessment, and a range of teaching and learning services. Led by Carrie Tang, the Greater China Legal team, consists of three other members: Jay Zhu, Penny Qiu and Fanny Lee. The IP protection work, undertaken by Jay Zhu, has helped the company to grow and expand in recent years. The team has made remarkable achievements in IP protection: about 1,500 infringing links/stores have been removed annually; the value is about RMB20 million in IPR cases. Cases with Pearson as the rights owner, are selected into: “Top Ten National Cases of Combating Infringement and Piracy” announced by the National Copyright Administration of China in 2021, Typical Cases of Short Video Copyright released by the Beijing IP Court in 2020, and Typical Cases of Short Video Copyright released by the Beijing Internet Court in 2022. |
S.C. Johnson & SonBRAND PROTECTION, APAC LEGALTeam Leader: Becky Wang This three-person intellectual property (IP) team, led by Becky Wang, includes Chloe Cui and Fifi Wang. The SC Johnson & Son team reports to global legal, and deals mainly with intellectual property-related issues in the APAC region. These include but are not limited to planning IP protection strategies, bringing legal action against infringers, establishing trademark rights and copyright, dispute resolution, promoting IP awareness, researching and verifying IP ownership of specific products and developing relationships with external partners. Cases conducted by the team have been included in such prestigious award categories as the QBPC Annual Top Ten IP Protection Cases on four occasions; the China Customs Top Ten IP Protection Cases of 2017; the Hebei High Court Top 15 IP Cases in 2019, and the Shanghai Pudong Court Top Ten IP Cases for 2021. |
TCL IndustriesIP TEAMTeam Leader: Karl Yeh |
TOTO (China)LEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Lu Yuping |
Xicha (Shenzhen) Enterprise ManagementRISK CONTROL CENTRETeam Leader: Zou Jun |
WINNER
SEMBCORP (CHINA)LEGAL & COMPLIANCE TEAMTeam Leader: Allen Liang |
HIGHLY COMMENDED
A-Living Smart City ServicesLEGAL CENTRETeam Leader: Gong Lin |
ChenxifundsLEGAL & COMPLIANCE DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Zhao Li |
China Resources LandLEGAL AND COMPLIANCE DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Liu Zhong |
Hongkong LandCHINA LEGAL SERVICESTeam Leader: Bobo Xu |
WINNER
CHINA POWER INTERNATIONALDEPARTMENT OF LEGAL AND RISK MANAGEMENTTeam Leader: Huang Huina |
HIGHLY COMMENDED
China Gezhouba Group Overseas InvestmentLEGAL AND COMPLIANCE DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Cao Haiyang |
ESRLEGAL TEAMTeam Leader: Zoe Shou ESR’s in-house legal team has been critical to the company’s growth and success. In the past five years, the team has grown from six people to more than 30 in Greater China, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and India. Almost all team members draw on more than 10 years of experience in the legal sector. ESR’s in-house legal team facilitates group debt and equity financing, fundraising and fund management, acquisition and disposition and other significant transactions, as well as compliance and general corporate matters. The team is deeply involved in all material transactions – from structuring, due diligence, and transaction documents negotiation to finalization and closing. The team also provides legal support relating to the company’s expansion into new business. In 2021, ESR’s in-house legal team was instrumental in various high profile transactions, such as ESR’s acquisition of ARA Asset Management, the acquisition of Milestone Portfolio from Blackstone, and the acquisition of data center assets in the APAC region.” |
IBM (China)GREATER CHINA GROUP LAW DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Jin Hao |
Orix China InvestmentCOMPLIANCE AND LEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Jin Xiaofan The legal team in Orix is close-knit and passionate. Backed by considerable legal knowledge and working experience, the team has a comprehensive skill set to support front office teams across various jurisdictions, industries, transaction types and operating entities. The youngest team member, Cheryl Guo, innovative but prudent, has been active in the funds, fintech, data compliance and equity investment sectors. Gu Tao, having gained prior experience in construction, insurance and investment related disputes, switched his focus to the finance and leasing industry and now handles this area of practice for the Orix Group. The team has just moved into a new office, where new challenges will be waiting for it to conquer. |
Saint-Gobain (China)LEGAL DEPARTMENT, APAC REGIONTeam Leader: Feng Xiaoju
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Over the years and with limited resources, Saint-Gobain Asia-Pacific legal team has continuously maintained high-quality and efficient output in the fields of M&A and restructuring, compliance (including cyber/data security and data compliance), dispute resolution and intellectual property protection, as well as supporting the digital transformation of varied businesses of the company, providing strong support for the sustainable development of more than 100 legal entities in 16 jurisdictions across the Asia-Pacific Region. In addition to the external honors, in the first internal service quality survey of all supporting functions in the Asia-Pacific Region at the end of 2021, our work was highly appraised by the countries/regions and business teams in APAC, and gained the best score in both the individual index and total rating among all the functions. It was also highly recognized and appreciated by the Asia-Pacific Region management and the General Counsel of Saint-Gobain Group.
Sumitomo Pharma ChinaCHINA LEGAL TEAMTeam Leader: Tina Liu |
WINNER
CHINA CINDA ASSET MANAGEMENTLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Li Qingliang |
HIGHLY COMMENDED
China International Capital CorporationLEGAL TEAM OF CICCTeam Leader: Joe Zhou |
China Resources Healthcare GroupLEGAL AND COMPLIANCE DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Meng Yongle |
Continental Holding ChinaCHINA LAW DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Xie Limin |
Fullshare HoldingsLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Bill Zhou |
Saint-Gobain (China)LEGAL DEPARTMENT, APAC REGIONTeam Leader: Feng Xiaoju
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Over the years and with limited resources, the Saint-Gobain Asia-Pacific legal team has continued to deliver high-quality and efficient service in the fields of M&A and restructuring, compliance including cyber and data security and data compliance, dispute resolution and intellectual property protection. It also supports the digital transformation of the varied businesses of the company, providing effective services for the sustainable development of over 100 legal entities in 16 jurisdictions across the Asia-Pacific region. Besides receiving external honours, the first internal service quality survey of all supporting functions in the Asia-Pacific region at the end of 2021 highly rated the team’s work, and the countries, regions and business teams in APAC commended it. The team achieved the best score in both the individual assessment and total rating among all the functions. It was also highly commended and congratulated by the Asia-Pacific region management and the general counsel of the Saint-Gobain Group.
State Grid Yingda Investment ManagementRISK COMPLIANCE DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Gao Hongda |
WINNER
YUM CHINAINTELLECTUAL PROPERTY TEAMTeam Leader: Joseph Chan |
HIGHLY COMMENDED
Gongniu GroupLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Wei Lingpeng |
Kimberly-Clark ChinaLEGAL TEAMTeam Leader: Shelly Huang |
WINNER
CHINA CINDA ASSET MANAGEMENTLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Li Qingliang |
HIGHLY COMMENDED
Sinopec CapitalRISK CONTROL AND COMPLIANCE DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: He Yinsheng |
State Grid Yingda Investment ManagementRISK COMPLIANCE DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Gao Hongda |
WINNER
BEIJING CHJ AUTOMOTIVE TECHNOLOGYLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Xu Dian |
HIGHLY COMMENDED
AutolivLEGAL DEPARTMENT, CHINATeam Leader: Huang Yiyun |
Chery Holding GroupLEGAL AND IP CENTRETeam Leader: Zhang Jinsong |
Huizhou Desay Sv AutomotiveLEGAL AFFAIRS DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Lin Xianwei The Legal Affairs Department at Desay SV actively co-operated with the company’s 2017 Shenzhen Stock Exchange listing plan, and successfully resolved several malicious lawsuits before the IPO. Under the leadership of Legal Director Lin Xianwei, it is deeply involved in global investment and financing, shaping the new norm of Tier 0.5 in the industry. The legal team helped the Company sign co-operation agreements with NVIDIA, the world’s leading high-computing chip company. During the past two years of covid-19, Lin led the team to assist the company in ensuring supply chain security. After the Russia-Ukraine conflict began in 2022, the legal team reported the early warning and response plan to the management, and formed a series of special reports to be published on the WeChat account. Desay SV’s legal team actively participates in the formulation of domestic automotive driving intelligent connected vehicle standards to help the development of China’s auto industry. |
ZeekrLEGAL AND COMPLIANCETeam Leader: Liu Fang ZEEKR, as the premium smart EV brand of the Geely Group, was established in April 2021. Its legal and compliance department also came into being and handles ZEEKR’s global legal compliance matters, covering such areas as strategic investment and financing, international business, dispute resolution, IP and data and general compliance. The department has nearly 70 professionals around the world, all with many years’ working experience in leading law firms and companies. In the past year, ZEEKR’s legal and compliance department has seen remarkable achievements, providing professional and effective legal support to ZEEKR’s major investment and financing projects and legal compliance affairs. The department has established a complete basic legal compliance system, assisted in strategic co-operation and financing of nearly RMB10 billion, categorised and drafted hundreds of contract templates, jointly completed various ISO accreditations and several major governmental review projects and handled civil and commercial disputes. The department has played an important role in ZEEKR’s rapid but stable development in this initial stage of its existence. |
WINNER
CHINA STATE SHIPBUILDING CORPORATIONLEGAL TEAM OF POLICY RESEARCH AND LEGAL AFFAIRS DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Cui Ruijie The policy and legal affairs department of the China State Shipbuilding Corporation Limited is a first-level functional department. It consists of the legal and the compliance and rules divisions. The legal team of 10 people ensures that CSSC follows legislation and regulation, and promotes legal management, rules construction, compliance and risk management. The department’s achievements in 2021 include embedding the 14th Five-Year Plan to ensure CSSC follows appropriate legislation and regulation and carrying out assessments of member units in this regard. This promoted the overall adherence to applicable law. The legal team strengthened legal risk prevention and control, looked to establish integrative legal risk prevention and control systems in parent-subsidiary company relationships, carried out risk investigation of all contracts in progress and strengthened legal education and communication. The department helped member units to deal swiftly with major disputes and cases, thereby avoiding or recovering economic losses of more than RMB2 billion. An efficient system of rules and regulations has been built, compliance management has been continuously refined, risk awareness of all staff has been continuously improved and no major adverse incident occurred in the year. |
HIGHLY COMMENDED
Bank of Communications Financial LeasingLEGAL AND COMPLIANCE SECTOR OF SHIPPING FINANCETeam Leader: Fan Linna |
China Merchants IndustryRISK MANAGEMENT DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Cao Yiwen |
Full Truck AllianceLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Shen Kai |
GOGOXLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Faye Xu |
Huolala & Lalamove GroupLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Jean Jiang The legal department of the Huolala & Lalamove Group, led by Jean Jiang, has rapidly expanded from three to over 30 people. The areas of practice of the team include corporate governance, business risk management, compliance management, dispute resolution and litigation, investment & financing, M&A, intellectual property management, data protection and privacy and policy and regulation research. Its scope of work covers all the business of the group, both at home and abroad. The core members of our team have solid professional knowledge, a deep understanding of the industry and extensive experience. In 2021, they led and completed major projects in various fields and provided accurate, efficient and full-range legal services for the Huolala & Lalamove Group. |
Shanghai Junzheng LogisticsLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Xu Jie
The team provided comprehensive support during 2019 – 2021 to business units, including operations, investment decision-making, corporate governance and risk control compliance, and had an outstanding record of achievement in several areas. The team is professionally led by vice-general manager Li Linwei, a legal veteran, who has served as the general counsel of several foreign ventures. He has instilled in the team a high level of responsibility and a desire to continually update their legal knowledge. Zhou Yang, a lawyer who has long studied shipping and maritime law, specialises in insurance claims and cross-border dispute resolution. Gao Yuan, a senior lawyer from a Red Circle firm, focuses on daily business contract management and domestic dispute resolution. The younger team members are filled with enthusiasm and creativity and have been selected as among the top 30 LEGALBAND China Legal Juniors for 2021. |
The Junzheng Logistics Group, previously affiliated with a state enterprise but now wholly owned by the Junzheng Group, is a leading international company in the transportation of liquid chemicals. The legal team has transformed the structure of legal risk control from that of a state enterprise to one appropriate for a private sector company. The group comprises over 100 companies in 13 jurisdictions, and the legal department deals with such matters as insurance claims and dispute resolution involving global liquid chemical ship fleets, speciality tank fleets and terminal storage.WINNER
ICBC INTERNATIONALLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Khor Han Wai ICBC International’s legal team has been headed by Khor Han Wai, General Counsel, since November 2017. The team works out of ICBC’s Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong offices. The team provides legal support to all business lines, including corporate finance, that is ECM, DCM and M&A financing and advisory, investment and asset management, sales and trading, research, China teams and internal divisions within the company. It is also actively involved in corporate governance matters. Members of the legal team are qualified to practise in Hong Kong, the PRC, England and Wales, New York and Singapore. |
HIGHLY COMMENDED
Bank of Communications Financial LeasingLEGAL AND COMPLIANCE SECTOR OF SHIPPING FINANCETeam Leader: Fan Linna |
CCB International (China)LEGAL & COMPLIANCE DIVISIONTeam Leader: Yu Shixuan |
China Minsheng BankLEGAL AND COMPLIANCE DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Chen Jun |
CMB Financial LeasingSHIPPING FINANCE DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Jay Shi CMB Financial Leasing holds firm to its development strategy of professionalism, internationalisation and digitalisation. The shipping leasing department, being one of the company’s strategic business sectors, has established business with clients in Europe, North America and the Asia-Pacific region and maintains excellent long-term relations with world-class shipping companies, independent shipowners and others in the industry. The company owns over 200 vessels of various types and as of December 2021, the shipping portfolio was worth more than RMB44.79 billion and amounted to more than 16 million deadweight tons of shipping capacity in total. Throughout 2021, the legal team of the shipping leasing department assisted the commercial team in all aspects of legal matters and types of transactions. These ranged from shipbuilding, the sale and purchase of previously owned vessels and leasing and security arrangements, as well as asset disposal, the exercise of options and various contract amendments. Transaction volumes for the year were the largest since the company was established. |
Express (Hangzhou) TechnologyLEGAL AND COMPLIANCE DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Wang Cheng |
Ping An GroupLEGAL AND COMPLIANCE DEPARTMENT (OVERSEAS)Team Leader: Danny Kan |
WINNER
BEIJING KINGSOFT CLOUD NETWORK TECHNOLOGYLEGAL DEPARTMENT – DATA & PRIVACY PROTECTION TEAMTeam Leader: Luo Liuhu The Kingsoft Cloud Data and Privacy Protection Team is led by Luo Liuhu who acts as the Data Protection Officer. Team members, Zhang Yuxi, Chen Jianing, and Qian Chunyan work together to build a global compliance system at Kingsoft Cloud. The team is devoted to providing users with privacy-friendly, high-quality cloud computing products and services. |
HIGHLY COMMENDED
Accumulus Technologies (Tianjin)LEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Teng Jin The Accumulus legal team concentrates on managing business risk and control, building compliance frameworks, protecting intellectual and undertaking innovative property industry research. In co-operation with China’s Red Circle law firms, it has delivered almost two million words of legal research on new business forms based on its experience and completed 31 industry-university research projects. The team assists Accumulus, which is ranked number 469 in the list of the top 500 Chinese enterprises, in providing professional services to more than 65 million workers country-wide under the new employment structure. The team has participated in the drafting of one national standard, two group standards and two international standards. It has also presided over the drafting of five Tianjin local standards, undertaken jointly with the High People’s Court of Tianjin Municipality, certainly one of the 2021 major judicial research projects of the Supreme People’s Court. |
Foxconn Industrial InternetDIVISION OF LEGAL AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTYTeam Leader: Eric Xie |
Inspur Electronic Information IndustryCOMPLIANCE DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Fan Lei |
Yonyou Network TechnologyLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Geng Fan |
WINNER
CHINA GEZHOUBA GROUP OVERSEAS INVESTMENTLEGAL AND COMPLIANCE DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Cao Haiyang |
HIGHLY COMMENDED
Aecom (Asia)LEGAL TEAMTeam Leader: Vincent Liu |
China Energy Engineering Group Guangdong Electric Power Design InstitutePOWER LEGAL TEAMTeam Leader: Zhu Haicheng The legal team of GEDI, under the leadership of Zhu Haicheng, the Director of the Legal Department, is a young, professional, determined yet holistic team with a highly developed sense of responsibility. The team handles such matters as contract management, legal support and review, dispute resolution, compliance management and legal education. The team reviews about 3,000 contracts per year, successfully handles a high volume of major cases and has taken the lead in successfully developing a robust compliance management system as a pilot program for the company and, it is hoped, for the group. The team is also proud to have established a life-cycle contract management system that matches the actual situation of the company and covers the entire chain of dispute management, providing real-time feedback. The team established and has continually improved a whole-process legal support system, covering the five aspects of market development, contract signing, project implementation, dispute resolution and other legal support functions. In terms of legal education, the team continues to strengthen the development of the company’s compliance culture, implementing an integrated law dissemination mechanism, and making the legal environment of the company increasingly secure and robust. |
China Machinery Engineering CorporationLEGAL AND RISK MANAGEMENT DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Duan Xiangwei
The legal and risk management department of China Machinery Engineering Corporation (CMEC) was set up in 1982 and has more than 40 years of experience in providing legal services in construction and infrastructure. Upholding value-creating adherence to the law and providing all-round protection of the legal rights and interests of CMEC, the legal department gives legal advice and endeavours to settle disputes for all construction and infrastructure projects being developed by CMEC in more than 150 countries and territories during the full life cycle of those projects. |
Harbin Electric InternationalLEGAL AND COMPLIANCE DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Zhang Hantao |
KONE CorporationLEGAL & COMPLIANCE DEPARTMENT, GREATER CHINATeam Leader: Brian Chen |
Shanghai Construction GroupLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Xu Haifeng |
WINNER
XIAOMI CORPORATIONLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Liu Zhen |
HIGHLY COMMENDED
Cowell HealthDEPARTMENT OF LEGAL AND COMPLIANCETeam Leader: Song Hao |
Kimberly-Clark ChinaLEGAL TEAMTeam Leader: Shelly Huang |
Kweichow Moutai (China)LEGAL AND COMPLIANCE DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Yang Jun |
Luk Fook Holdings (International)LEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Irene Cheung The Legal Affairs Department of Luk Fook Group is composed of legal teams from mainland China (including Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan and Guangzhou) and Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. It provides professional compliance services for the group’s gold, platinum and jewellery retail business around the world. As the law and policies in relation to consumer goods and retail have significant impact on the Group, and different countries/regions have different laws and policies, the legal teams have developed comprehensive working guidelines and procedures to ensure compliance of the group’s retail business, and to safeguard the development of the group. The team received accolades for their legal expertise and professionalism in the related legal field, having received the “2020 Winner of the Year – Consumer & Retail” of In-House Counsel Awards by China Business Law Journal. |
OPPOCOMPLIANCE DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Hei Hongbo |
S.C. Johnson & SonBRAND PROTECTION, APAC LEGALTeam Leader: Becky Wang |
Sephora ChinaLEGAL AND GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Ashley Zhu Sephora China Legal & Government Affairs Department has five practice areas, data compliance and new technology law; corporate, commercial and intellectual property matters; real estate law and dispute resolution; ethics and compliance, and government relationships and ESG. Each team member plays two roles, first as an expert in their practice area and second as a legal or government affairs business partner to internal stakeholders. As a business partner, each team member acts as a point of contact and leverages all internal expertise to provide the best practical solutions and tactical approaches. Under the leadership of Ashley Zhu, the department has adopted new technologies to empower corporate governance, internal controls and compliance processes, as well as digital transformation. The department carried out a series of pioneering practice exercises providing intellectual property protection, data governance and privacy compliance services in the retail and consumer goods industries. |
Victoria’s SecretBRAND PROTECTIONTeam Leader: Jessica Li |
WINNER
PEARSONLEGAL AND COMPLIANCETeam Leader: Carrie Tang Pearson is the world’s leading learning company, with expertise in educational courseware and assessment, and a range of teaching and learning services. Led by Carrie Tang, the Greater China team of Legal & Compliance consists of three other members: Jay Zhu, Penny Qiu and Fanny Lee. The team has extensive experience in serving mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan markets. The team helps the company transform its business, actively respond to the impact of the covid-19 pandemic and policies, and implements Pearson’s purpose of “add life to a lifetime of learning”. The team provides professional and efficient legal services in IP protection, privacy information protection, data security, contract management, compliance and other aspects, and supports the development of various businesses of Pearson’s five divisions (assessment & qualifications, virtual learning, English learning, workforce skills and higher education). |
HIGHLY COMMENDED
Beijing Yuanli Education Science And TechnologyLEGAL YUANTeam Leader: Jia Zheng
Consistent with the idea of integrated compliance, the department, as the hub of the company, has become a co-ordinator for all business and functional departments. The team has introduced and continually improves the company’s compliance system. The team actively communicates and co-operates with business departments, and provides far-sighted results and professional legal advice for business decision-making. This guarantees confidence in the compliance process and provides assurance in the company’s rapid business development. Despite last year’s regulatory storm, the legal team withstood the pressure, and oversaw or took part in group restructuring, personnel redeployment, business negotiations and dispute settlement, helping the company recover or avoid economic losses of more than RMB100 million. |
Established in 2016, the legal department of the Beijing Yuanli Education Science and Technology has supported the company to complete several rounds of financing, with over USD4 billion raised.
New Oriental Education & Technology GroupLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Guan Rui
By providing legal protection and legal support for the group’s development, and with its expertise and clear commercial objectives, the legal department fully participates in strategic investment projects to ensure their stable operation. The department designs transaction structures, carries out pre-investment due diligence, ensures collaboration across all divisions and manages post-investment risk. The legal team has 10 members, all of whom have master’s degrees or above. Its excellence and professionalism have been recognised by all departments and leaders within the group. The legal team was named as the team of excellence from 2016 to 2019. |
As the group’s legal service, support and management department, the Legal Department of the New Oriental Education and Technology Group is committed to building effective legal support and legal risk prevention and control systems for the Group’s decision-making processes and operations.WINNER
HAIER SMART HOMEGLOBAL LEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: James Liu The Haier Smart Home global legal department, with more than 100 practising lawyers in such locations as China, the USA, Europe, Australia and Asia, co-operated to provide Haier’s global business with all-round professional services such as areas such as commercial contracts, investment M&A, dispute resolution, IP, corporate governance, trade security, anti-corruption and antitrust and data privacy. In 2021, the legal department actively pushed legal frontiers and provided comprehensive legal solutions for Haier’s innovative business models and IoT ecosystems. In response to Haier’s digital transformation strategy, based on professionalism, timeliness and science and technology, the legal department launched the SmartLawyer cloud platform through the application of AI, blockchain, cloud computing and big data. The system will give Haier a risk control system to match the imagination of its digital enterprises and enable the company to realise data-driven decision-making, provide it with legal backing to its businesses and help it grow. |
HIGHLY COMMENDED
OPPOCOMPLIANCE DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Hei Hongbo |
Panasonic Corporation Of ChinaLEGAL COMPLIANCE CENTRETeam Leader: Liu Qiang The Panasonic China & Northeast Asia Company legal and compliance department, under the leadership of Liu Qiang, senior director, is a highly competent legal team with strong ties to the company’s business units. It fully supports the legal and compliance management of the China businesses and has built an independent, decision-making legal risk management platform. In response to the changes in the business environment in China, Panasonic is constantly developing new business activities and exploring new business models. The legal team has developed in-depth communications with the business units and built strong relationships of trust. As a first step, it has been involved in the project to provide accurate and rapid support for business operations and effectively control risks at the company. In order to strengthen risk prevention frameworks and improve compliance management, the legal team has committed to using IT to build an effective compliance management system. Over the past year, the legal and compliance department has worked with business units to develop and respond to a wide range of issues, including debt collection, equity disputes, contractual disputes and labour disputes. |
TCL IndustriesIP TEAMTeam Leader: Karl Yeh |
Xiaomi CorporationLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Liu Zhen |
WINNER
SHANGHAI ELECTRIC POWERLEGAL COMPLIANCE DEPARTMENT (OFFICE OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS), LEGAL SERVICE SHARED CENTRETeam Leader: Wu Ming |
HIGHLY COMMENDED
China Gezhouba Group Overseas InvestmentLEGAL AND COMPLIANCE DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Cao Haiyang |
China National Oil And Gas Exploration And DevelopmentLEGAL AFFAIRS DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Yu Haitao |
China Power InternationalDEPARTMENT OF LEGAL AND RISK MANAGEMENTTeam Leader: Huang Huina |
Shanghai Electric GroupLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Tong Liping |
WINNER
BEIJING CAPITAL ECO-ENVIRONMENT PROTECTION GROUPLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Shao Li |
HIGHLY COMMENDED
CIFI Holdings (Group)LEGAL RISK CONTROL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Ding Zhaohui |
Sembcorp (China)LEGAL & COMPLIANCE TEAMTeam Leader: Allen Liang The Sembcorp China legal and compliance team provides effective legal and compliance services in such matters as M&A, dispute settlement, administrative sanction, compliance management and contract management to the environmental and energy business of Sembcorp China. The company is wholly owned by Sembcorp Industries Ltd., which is controlled by Singapore Temasek and includes two foreign investment companies and dozens of affiliates. Over the years, the team has continued to improve its professional capabilities and strengthen team building. It has established and improved the legal risk control systems of Sembcorp China, has successfully handled many complex disputes and administrative penalty cases, and reduced the company’s legal risks in its environmental and energy business. In 2021, jointly with other functions, the team secured a number of M&A and divestment transactions. |
Trina SolarTRINA LAWTeam Leader: Margarita Yao The Trina Solar legal team, led by Margarita Yao, is made up of 60 in-house lawyers based in Changzhou, Shanghai, the USA and the Europe Corporate HQ. It is one of the few Ministry of Justice-licensed in-house legal teams. The team provides legal support to all business lines, including commercial activities, dispute resolution, financing, securities markets, IP and M&A. It is also actively involved in corporate governance matters. Members of the legal team are qualified to practise in China, Mexico, Japan, the USA, Spain, Germany, Chile and Singapore. |
Zhonghai TrustASSET PRESERVATION AND INNOVATION RESEARCH DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Li Yu The Zhonghai Trust asset preservation and innovation research legal team is an important part of the CNOOC legal department in the financial sector and has been a People’s Bank of China law monitoring network participant since 2021. Team leader Li Yu takes part in academic research and the formulation of laws, regulations and policies in the asset management industry. The team recognised the volatility of the financial market, studied it in a timely way, and assessed and interpreted the new policies in green finance and related fields. The team provided legal support when the company launched innovative carbon-neutral financial products in 2021, and formulated guidelines for the identification and evaluation of green dual carbon projects, guiding the company in establishing ESG investment standards for trust products. |
WINNER
YUM CHINAINTELLECTUAL PROPERTY TEAMTeam Leader: Joseph Chan |
HIGHLY COMMENDED
Pepsico (China)LEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Jay Buckley The PepsiCo Greater China legal department provides full legal services to the PepsiCo business in the Greater China region. In challenging environments, the legal team works seamlessly, proactively and creatively to achieve milestones in business initiatives, M&A, litigation, business development and day-to-day operations. The team always provides practical guidance on how to best operate, goes above and beyond to help business units navigate challenges and plays a large role in helping the businesses drive growth. The legal team supports the company in disrupting markets to achieve “Faster, stronger and better” goals. |
Xicha (Shenzhen) Enterprise ManagementRISK CONTROL CENTRETeam Leader: Zou Jun The legal department of Heytea is responsible for legal management and support in areas such as commercial real estate leasing, food safety, protection of consumer rights and interests, retail, fast-moving consumer goods, data compliance and intellectual property. The department is establishing risk control management systems and pushing the continual improvement of those systems. It plays a role in company investment projects, including planning and implementing company restructuring, undertaking due diligence, risk control and intellectual property strategies. The legal department handles intellectual property disputes, crisis cases, labour arbitrations, and legal disputes. It ensures the comprehensive protection of the company’s brands and intellectual property, carries out trademark protection and strategy for key intellectual property and products, and has established a mechanism for trademark monitoring and protection. The department has completed trademark registrations in 15 countries and regions around the world, including Asia, Europe and North America. Under the company principle of Keep Growing, Stay Inspired, the legal department derives inspiration and grows with the brand, striving to develop the tea industry of China and bring more joy to consumers. |
WINNER
ABBISKO THERAPEUTICSABBISKO LEGAL TEAMTeam Leader: Li Yongyi
The Abbisko legal and compliance team provides complete and full-spectrum support to ensure R&D, clinical, business and cross-function colleagues can operate and transact domestically and internationally while ensuring the company’s rapid and healthy growth. During its organic expansion in the last year, Abbisko completed several cross-border transactions, made significant progress in R&D and clinical development and in October successfully listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. As an important department of the company, Abbisko’s legal and compliance team played a critical role in ensuring these achievements were completed efficiently. |
Established in 2016, Abbisko is an oncology-focused biopharmaceutical company dedicated to developing innovative medicines to treat unmet medical needs in China and around the world.HIGHLY COMMENDED
AbbottLEGAL TEAM, GREATER CHINATeam Leader: Aaron Shao |
BGI GenomicsLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Xu Qian
BGI Genomics Co. Ltd. is a leading biological enterprise in China in the field of gene therapy and engineering. It is also one of the world’s leading technology and precision medicine service operators, with business in over 100 countries and regions around the world. BGI is committed to reducing birth defects, strengthening cancer prevention and control, curing infection through precision treatment, developing precision medicine, and reducing the harm caused by major diseases through genetic technology. The legal department of BGI Genomics provides effective support for the company’s strategic decision-making and global business compliance. Its team members are graduates of well-known domestic and overseas law schools and have extensive experience in the law relating to medicine and life sciences. |
China Animal Husbandry IndustryLEGAL AFFAIRS DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Xu Shaowen China Animal Husbandry Industry Co., Ltd. (CAHIC) is a listed company of a national enterprise with China National Agricultural Development Group as the actual controller. It is a key enterprise in China’s animal health products and feed additives industry. The main business of CAHIC includes four business segments, veterinary vaccines and diagnostic reagents, feed and feed additives, veterinary medicine and bulk raw material. It plays a major role as a national enterprise and a dominant force in the prevention and control of major national animal diseases, protecting public health and ensuring environmental safety, animal health and meat safety. In recent years, the group leadership, its management team and the legal department have endeavoured to implement national policy and reform and develop the company. The legal department has provided legal services diligently and carried out effective compliance management. It has helped to ensure the steady operation and dynamic development of the company. |
China Resources Healthcare GroupLEGAL AND COMPLIANCE DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Meng Yongle |
I-Mab BiopharmaLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Richard Li Since being set up in 2016, the I-Mab legal department has provided the company with a full range of legal services. It has prevented and mitigated legal risks in intellectual property rights, transactions and business collaborations, capital markets, clinical operations, and general corporate affairs. It supports the company in its vision of becoming an international biopharmaceutical enterprise covering the entire industry chain. Major projects led by or with the participation of the team in recent years include I-Mab’s listing on NASDAQ in the USA in January 2020; the conclusion of a US$418 million private placement (PIPE) agreement with a consortium led by Hillhouse Capital; the advancement of the company’s listing plan in the STAR market since August 2021; the completion of a series of strategic collaboration projects with partners such as AbbVie, Immorna, NeoX Biotech, Jumpcan, and Roche Diagnostics, and the establishment of a GMP manufacturing base in Hangzhou and GSP companies in Lishui, Zhejiang and elsewhere. The team has been assisting the company to carry out a number of clinical trials in China and the US on a long-term basis. It also provides global support in the application and maintenance of IP related affairs such as patents, trademarks and copyright. |
LonzaLEGAL AND GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Olive Yu |
Shanghai Junshi BiosciencesLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Ye Peili |
Sumitomo Pharma ChinaCHINA LEGAL TEAMTeam Leader: Tina Liu Established in 2014, the Sumitomo Pharma China (SMPC) Legal Team comprises six members, including senior legal experts in charge of corporate legal affairs, intellectual property and other fields. The team has demonstrated a high level of professionalism and teamwork in providing legal support to the company’s business. Led by Tina Liu, general counsel and Chief Legal Officer, the team has provided a full range of professional services to the company and actively supported major commercial projects, internal systems and system development, and corporate legal training. The team has empowered the business over past years, assisting the company successfully to complete a number of strategic transactions and projects during a period of external environmental changes and internal corporate transformations. |
WINNER
CRRC ZHUZHOU LOCOMOTIVELEGAL AND COMPLIANCE TEAMTeam Leader: Pan Zhuqing The legal and compliance department of CRRC Zhuzhou Locomotive was set up in 2014. Since then, it has fully supported the company’s mission of supplying China’s rail transport systems and equipment to the world by growing internationally. The department provides professional and effective legal support to the company and its subsidiaries in mergers and acquisitions, risk management systems, compliance, litigation and arbitration and domestic and foreign market projects. The department successfully introduced the legal and compliance management system and the business collaboration mechanism at the company and helped it obtain several major orders in international markets. |
HIGHLY COMMENDED
BOE Technology GroupLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Feng Liqiong |
Festo (China)LEGAL AND COMPLIANCE DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Tony Dong |
Foxconn Industrial InternetDIVISION OF LEGAL AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTYTeam Leader: Eric Xie |
KONE CorporationLEGAL & COMPLIANCE DEPARTMENT, GREATER CHINATeam Leader: Brian Chen |
Shanghai Electric GroupLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Tong Liping |
Sinar Mas Paper (China)LEGAL DEPARTMENT OF SINAR MAS GROUP – APP CHINATeam Leader: Huang Jun |
WINNER
CHINA PACIFIC INSURANCE (GROUP)LEGAL AND COMPLIANCE DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Yuan Ye |
HIGHLY COMMENDED
Ping An GroupLEGAL AND COMPLIANCE DEPARTMENT (OVERSEAS)Team Leader: Danny Kan |
Ping An TrustLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Betty Xiang |
Taikang Insurance GroupLEGAL AND COMPLIANCE DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Jeffrey King |
Zhonghai TrustASSET PRESERVATION AND INNOVATION RESEARCH DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Li Yu The Zhonghai Trust asset preservation and innovation research legal team is an important part of the CNOOC legal department in the financial sector. All team members hold master’s degrees and doctorates from well-known law schools, and have obtained the company’s lawyer qualification. Team leader, Li Yu, has experienced the entire development cycle of the asset management industry since joining the company in June 2010 and has great experience in project review, risk prevention, legal compliance analysis and risk management. The team has provided legal services and support for trust dispute resolution, high-risk asset disposal, business negotiation and long-term equity investment over the past year. It carried out research and analysis of policies in green finance and dual carbon initiatives, and supported the company in launching innovative green finance and carbon-neutral financial products. |
WINNER
JD GROUPLEGAL COMPLIANCE AND IP DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Hu Huangang Set up in 2007, JD’s Legal Compliance and Intellectual Property Department has grown and extended the scope of its legal services from China to more than a dozen countries and regions, such as Southeast Asia, Europe and the United States. The department provides all-round legal support for JD’s many businesses, including general business compliance, dispute resolution, legal research and intellectual property protection. Constantly exploring new fields with other departments of the company, the department advises on legal issues, ameliorates legal risks in a timely manner, fully supports the business department’s decision-making processes and assists the rapid but stable growth of the company’s business. |
HIGHLY COMMENDED
BaiduLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Li Yanjie |
BilibiliLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Liu Nan |
KE HoldingsLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Chen Yan Comprising over 50 members in eight legal teams, namely the platform legal team, the patent and software team, the trademark and copyright team, the corporate governance team, the investment and financing legal team, the listing compliance team and two business support teams, KE Holdings’ Legal Department provides services to the company in litigation, intellectual property rights, investment and financing, data protection, compliance, business legal support and legal research. In recent years, the KE Holdings Legal Department led or helped accomplish a number of major projects, including the company’s red chip restructuring in 2018; its private placement in 2019 and its listing on the New York Stock Exchange in 2020 with proceeds of USD2.4 billion. Also in 2020, the legal team leading KE Holdings became the first residential service platform to obtain both ISO/IEC 27001 information security management systems and ISO/IEC27701 privacy information management systems accreditation in China. |
Mango Excellent MediaLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Zou Xuzi |
Sina CorporationLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Helen Gu
SINA Group is an online media company serving the global Chinese community. It has two major business systems, Sina vertical applications, including Sina News, Sina Finance and Sina Sports, and Sina Weibo, with hundreds of millions of registered users worldwide. As the SINA Group has grown, the legal department has expanded into a team of over 50 counsel in group headquarters, local network stations, and holding subsidiaries. Led by Helen Gu, general counsel, the legal department undertakes a variety of functions such as direct management, online management and on-site work matters. The department advises SINA Group on all aspects of legal affairs, including M&A and investment, capital markets, dispute resolution, data security, antitrust, IP management including trademarks, domain names, patents and software copyright, contract review, licence and qualification management, business compliance, risk control, government relations and policy research. |
Tencent TechnologyLEGAL CENTRE OF WECHATTeam Leader: Huang Jiahui |
WINNER
SINA CORPORATIONLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Helen Gu SINA Group is an online media company serving the global Chinese community. It has two major business systems, Sina vertical applications, including Sina News, Sina Finance and Sina Sports, and Sina Weibo, with hundreds of millions of registered users worldwide. As the SINA Group has grown, the legal department has expanded into a team of over 50 counsel in group headquarters, local network stations, and holding subsidiaries. Led by Helen Gu, general counsel, the legal department undertakes a variety of functions such as direct management, online management and on-site work matters. The department advises SINA Group on all aspects of legal affairs, including M&A and investment, capital markets, dispute resolution, data security, antitrust, IP management including trademarks, domain names, patents and software copyright, contract review, licence and qualification management, business compliance, risk control, government relations and policy research. |
HIGHLY COMMENDED
Beijing International Resort Theme Park And Resort Management BranchLEGAL AND COMPLIANCETeam Leader: Shawn Yun Beijing Universal Resort legal team was responsible for legal and compliance support to the Resort throughout its operational preparation and grand opening. It continues in that role in the Resort’s day-to-day operations. The Resort was opened in September 2021, and was the largest Universal theme park at the time, and one of the most digitised parks, being equipped with considerable cutting edge technology. The complexity of legal and compliance work involved in such an extensive project was unprecedented, as it involved thousands of contracts, government permits, licences, registrations, certifications and the examination of complex ride and show equipment. The team supported the setting up and compliance of thousands of standard operating procedure documents, information security, IP licences and protection, entertainment, human resources and housing management. Its oversight extended to environment, health and safety programmes, insurance, guest claims, cross-border transactions and compliance. Finally, there were the legal and compliance aspects of liaising with the legal and IP management teams of the property owner, shareholders and IP licensors. The pandemic situation in the past few years created tremendous uncertainties and difficulties. However, the legal team met these challenges with determination and successfully completed all tasks on time, delivering high-quality results. The work of the team helped to ensure a splendid Grand Opening of the Universal Beijing Resort and its smooth operation since then. |
BilibiliLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Liu Nan |
Future TVINTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND LEGAL TEAMTeam Leader: Flower Yang |
Huayi Brothers MediaLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Li Jingjue
The legal department provides legal solutions to Huayi Brothers Corporation and its affiliates throughout China, Hong Kong and the United States across a broad range of pan-entertainment industry interests. These include investment and financing, production, advertising and distribution, derivative products, theme parks and film and TV industry capital markets. After years of research and exploration, in 2021 the company improved its risk assessment management for film and TV projects and the legal team played an important role in setting up effective project risk management. The legal team collaborates with other departments in a variety of complex disputes, arbitration and litigation involving company dissolution and trademark and copyright infringement. It works to successfully protect the overall interests of the company. The company and its legal advisers continue to embrace new challenges, promote talent effectively and to focus on cultivating talent for the entertainment sector. |
ThePaper.CnLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Li Yan |
Weibo CorporationWEIBO LEGAL TEAMTeam Leader: Fan Ye Founded in 2009, WeiBo is the leading social media platform in China. Parallel with its business development, WeiBo’s legal team has grown and expanded. It provides a full range of legal services in such areas as product risk control, data security, personal information protection, capital market operations and policy research. The team also has responsibility for the overall intellectual property protection of the group and has established a multi-layered intellectual property management system for patents, trademarks, copyrights and domain names. Over the years, the team has steadily improved its professional quality and cross-departmental co-operation and has continually broadened its range of legal services. It has also firmly grasped the balance between commercial demands and legal risks to support the company’s innovative business model and its operational ecology development. |
WINNER
RIOT GAMES CHINALEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Emi Zhao |
HIGHLY COMMENDED
37 Interactive EntertainmentLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Lai Qiqi |
BilibiliLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Liu Nan |
Cht.Shengqu GamesINTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LEGAL TEAMTeam Leader: Ma Haoguang By providing all-round intellectual property legal support for the operation, licensing and protection of Legend of Mir 2, World of Legend, Dragon Nest and other phenomenal online game products, CHT-Shengqu Games intellectual property management team has in place an online games’ intellectual property strategic management and protection system, intellectual property compliance and risk control legal systems and a 360° infringement monitoring and protection system. CHT-Shengqu Games intellectual property management team has frequently pushed hard for judicial and legislative protection of its online game products. |
Elex TechnologyLEGAL AND COMPLIANCE DIVISIONTeam Leader: Feng Ruili ELEX’s online gaming legal team of eight members provides legal protection for the company’s game development and global publishing businesses, and daily operations. Its key responsibilities include global game distribution compliance, data protection, personal privacy compliance, intellectual property rights protection, dispute resolution, labour and employment matters and state-owned asset compliance. The team is involved in compliance work in nearly 200 countries, jurisdictions and regions around the world. In the past year, the company and the team have had to face the fluctuating fortunes of the global game market and increasingly fierce competition in the gaming industry. There have also been increasingly strict compliance requirements for data protection and personal privacy introduced in various countries. However, the team has benefitted from reasonable workflow procedures, as well as helping to introduce compliance and risk control systems, such as the compliance support system for global publishing and distribution and the global data compliance work support system. ELEX’s cross-border legal team is able to provide complete and timely solutions for the company’s various decision-making processes and businesses in the complex and ever-changing overseas gaming market. |
Idreamsky TechnologyLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Jasmine Liu |
Tencent TechnologyLEGAL CENTRE OF WECHATTeam Leader: Huang Jiahui |
WINNER
QIANHAI ARK ASSET MANAGEMENTRISK MANAGEMENT DEAPRTMENTTeam Leader: Leon Lam |
HIGHLY COMMENDED
Greater Bay Area Homeland InvestmentsLEGAL AND COMPLIANCE DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Andrew Ning |
Orix China InvestmentCOMPLIANCE AND LEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Jin Xiaofan |
SDIC Venture CapitalLEGAL AFFAIRS DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Tian Ye |
SIG Asia InvestmentCHINA LEGAL TEAMTeam Leader: Alex Chu |
WINNER
CIFI HOLDINGS (GROUP)LEGAL RISK CONTROL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Ding Zhaohui CIFI Holdings (Group) (CIFI) is listed on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HK.0884), as a comprehensive large enterprise group. Its key businesses, such as real estate development, commercial operations and property services, have been included in the “Best-Managed Companies” and “Best ESG” categories in various award competitions. CIFI’s Legal Risk Control Department comprises seven senior legal officers, each with more than a decade of experience. Growing from its status as one of the first private enterprise pilot units for corporate lawyers in Shanghai, CIFI now has almost 100 legal staff, vertically managed and organised into various regional and business sectors. With business support and risk pre-control as its core responsibilities, the legal team is committed to the realisation of its goal of “Legal assistance for business, risk control to achieve value, compliance for safety and protection”. The team looks to be part of the company’s strategy of “Sustainable, steady and quality development”. |
HIGHLY COMMENDED
Beijing International Resort Theme Park And Resort Management BranchLEGAL AND COMPLIANCETeam Leader: Shawn Yun |
China Resources LandLEGAL AND COMPLIANCE DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Liu Zhong |
Fullshare HoldingsLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Bill Zhou |
Hongkong LandCHINA LEGAL SERVICESTeam Leader: Bobo Xu |
Huafa Properties Nanjing CompanyRISK CONTROL LEGAL COMPLIANCE DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Wang Jingjing |
Ke HoldingsLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Chen Yan |
Logan GroupRISK CONTROL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Lisa Yang |
Ping An Real EstateLEGAL AND COMPLIANCE DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Liu Jing |
WINNER
IBM (CHINA)GREATER CHINA GROUP LAW DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Jin Hao |
HIGHLY COMMENDED
Eswin Computing TechnologyLEGAL AFFAIRS AND RISK CONTROL CENTRETeam Leader: Wu Xi The ESWIN compliance and legal office is committed to providing comprehensive and efficient legal services in support of corporate governance and operations. The CLO team concentrates on matters such as investment and financing, business operations, compliance and risk control and legal standardisation. Meeting the challenges of a complex and changing market environment, the team continually improves its legal support and collaboration services, and promotes Eswin’s rapid and ongoing development. It achieves this through professional specialisation, the continual optimisation of system processes, and the implementation of consistent legal standards. The team has 14 members, all with wide-ranging professional and innovative abilities. Team members are graduates of respected universities, with considerable legal knowledge and industrial experience. The team adheres to its core values of delivering customer-focused, technology-based, outcome-driven, quality service. With hard work as its foundation, it pursues excellence through pragmatism, an intense focus, efficiency, agility, and commercial awareness to safeguard the company’s interests and help it improve all aspects of operations, management and decision-making. |
Gongjin TechnologyHSZ LEGAL AND COMPLIANCE CENTRETeam Leader: Luo Yuan The Huisuanzhang (HSZ) SaaS platform operated by Beijing Gongjin technology is a well-known brand of internet finance, accounting and tax services that provides intelligent finance, accounting and tax outsourcing, licensing applications and other comprehensive corporate services for over a million small and medium-sized enterprises. The HSZ legal department provides a wide range of M&A and BP support, dispute resolution solutions and data protection, IP and compliance services for 55 directly operated subsidiaries and hundreds of HSZ service centres across the nation. HSZ Legal is an innovative, highly competent and efficient team. Using in-house-developed management systems, it has centralised and streamlined the management of contract review and drafting, sealing, legal entity incorporation and liquidation, tort cases and conflict of interest disclosures. From its founding, the HSZ legal team has devoted itself to establishing comprehensive compliance frameworks, instituting related regulatory compliance and managing data privacy, conflicts of interest, and anti-competition activities to promote HSZ’s vision of becoming the most trusted business housekeeper for 100 million SMEs. |
Foxconn Industrial InternetDIVISION OF LEGAL AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTYTeam Leader: Eric Xie |
Minsheng FintechLEGAL COMPLIANCE TEAMTeam Leader: Zhu Jiang |
Qi-Anxin Technology GroupLEGAL DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Ma Lan |
Sensetime GroupLEGAL AFFAIRS DEPARTMENTTeam Leader: Zhang Wang The legal affairs department of the SenseTime Group serves the group’s global sustainable development strategy and provides professional support in areas such as capital markets, data, dispute resolution, contract review, intellectual property rights, standards and qualifications and export control compliance. Since being set up, the department has contributed to a number of major projects at home and abroad, helped establish strategic relationships with multiple partners, and supported the successful listing of the group in Hong Kong. The legal affairs department employs over 70 people, most of whom have at least a master’s degree in law. Some staff are based outside China to provide a guarantee of professionalism for the group’s overseas market expansion plans. The department is committed to establishing a global legal team with advanced business and professional skills. Through the introduction of an efficient business operation management system and relying on an advanced digital management platform, it ensures its effective and efficient performance and wholehearted contribution to the sustainable development of all group business lines. |
