AI Issue 5 2018

Acquisition International - Issue 5 2018 73 Commerce & Finance Law Offices is a Chinese law firm supporting a range of clients across a vast array of practice areas. We profile the firm to find out more about the services it has to offer in this vital market. ounded in 1992, Commerce & Finance Law Offices was one of the first-generation private partnership law firms established in China. Headquartered in Beijing, the firm also has branch offices in Shanghai and Shenzhen. Today the firmhasapproximately300 legalprofessionals on its payroll, of whomabout one fourth are partners and senior counsel. All of these dedicated and experienced attorneys graduated from top law schools in China and abroad. Many of them previously worked with leading international law firms and other professional organizations in other jurisdictions. In early 1990s, it advised the first group of Chinese enterprises in their initial public offerings on domestic and foreign stock exchanges. Since then, it has participated inmany landmark state-owned enterprise reorganization and IPO projects and represented a large number of non-stated owned enterprises in their financing and IPO projects. Many of these projects involved legal issues of national significance and became precedents on both domestic and international markets. In 1999, for example, C&F designed the VIE (variable interest entity) structure in order to enable IT companies with domestic operations to issue their shares on international capital markets within the legal framework of the national industrial policy on foreign investment. C&Fwas also the first law firm to adapt the VIE structure for the overseas listing of companies engaged in industrial sectors other than IT. Besides the reputable Capital Markets practice, C&F’s litigation and arbitration team is particularly noted and Charging Ahead in Chinese Commercial Law F 1802AI59 Company: Commerce & Finance Law Offices Contact: LI Qishi Address: 6F NCI Tower, A12 Jianguomenwai Avenue, Chaoyang District, Beijing, 100022, China Phone: 0086 1381 1875 733 Email: [email protected] Website: www.tongshang.com handles major commercial litigation and arbitration cases. The team successfully represents clients in hundreds of high-profile and complicated commercial litigations every year, involving disputes in a variety of industries. Several members of the team are former judges, or former prosecutors from Chinese courts of various levels. Our practitioners are experienced at every levelof thecourtsystem inMainlandChina,aswell as in international arbitrations. The team represents both domestic and foreign clients before Chinese domestic and foreign arbitration institutions, the practitioners of the firm regularly sit as arbitrators and are appointed to roles at arbitration institutions in China and beyond. The clients praise the team as: Well reputed for its skills in handling arbitration and litigation cases, with especially notable experience of the former. Demonstrates a good track record on investment and contractual disputes. Clients further benefit from its cross-border arbitration offering. “Well reputed for its skills in handling arbitration and litigation cases, with especially notable experience of the former. Demonstrates a good track record on investment and contractual disputes. Clients further benefit from its cross- border arbitration offering.”