12 ASIAN LEGAL BUSINESS CHINA • 亚洲法律杂志-中国版 MARCH 2024 COVER STORY necessitates the in-house team to be forward-thinking and vigilant at all times, strengthening the company’s risk management and control, and learning to rely on its own certainties to respond to the uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity of the surrounding environment,” summarizes Gu from Xinfengming, articulating the mindset that an in-house team should adopt in the current climate. Yao from Trinasolar believes that in the era of “VUCA” (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity), one must first accept changes and crises and use mindset to guide actions. “If you keep complaining about the predicament and feel that it is difficult to make progress, such mindset already makes you lose half of the battle. During economic cycle transformation, fluctuation is the main theme, and there are actually more opportunities to overtake and make swift progress.” According to Gu, although economic globalization has encountered setbacks due to accelerating and escalating competition between major powers, globalization will always be an unstoppable trend. Openness and collaboration are still the development trends of the times, and “going global” is the general trend for businesses. The journey to “go global” is by no means smooth and is fraught with challenges, such as international or target country political stability, overseas compliance, antitrust, changes in laws and regulations, etc. “The journey of Xinfengming going global is also the journey of the in-house team continuously improving and upgrading itself. We take difficulties and challenges as opportunities to constantly dive deeper into our professional fields to gain an in-depth understanding of relevant laws and regulations and sharpen our professional capabilities.” “As a province with a large private economy, Zhejiang is home to many outstanding entrepreneurs who dare to be the first and are best at ‘making something out of nothing’. The same holds true for in-house counsel. Having grown up in Zhejiang, we make extensive use of the resources of the China International Chamber of Commerce for the Private Sector as the platform to advocate ‘going global as a team’ to ultimately maximize resources and minimize risks. On this basis, we will also gradually reconstruct our business, organization, and management systems,” says Gu. Yao and her team have also been exploring new opportunities through multiple channels, driven by the desire to enhance professional capabilities. The first is to develop legal strategy at the company level. “Formulating strategy is not something that a legal professional is familiar with. However, in a changing environment, if one just follows past practices or makes changes deliberately, the development of the team will become completely disorderly, resulting in a very low success rate. We must concentrate on defining a good strategy, prioritize the most important matters, and make systematic arrangements for the next five years in order to achieve growth.” “Second, we need to be more proactive in reaching out to internal departments, for example, to see what they are doing and what their strategic tasks are. If seven out of ten departments are working in a certain direction, then the in-house team can also think about how it can contribute in that direction. We can also consider whether the in-house team can take the lead in those remaining areas that no department is working on. Obtaining information and feedback from multiple channels can lay a solid foundation for the next strategy.” “Third, we need to push forward process development and digitalization, so that the massive amount of information can be separated from people’s subjective judgment and memory as much as possible to raise work efficiency and reduce ineffective communication among departments.” Yao says that last year, the in-house team straightened out changing in-house legal workflow and released the final processes at the end of the year, completing the digitalization of in-house legal processes. He shares that in the context of China-US decoupling, the in-house team seized the trend of the return, privatization, and delisting of China concept stocks, conducted early research, and sorted out the legal and compliance requirements of such transactions in advance under the regulatory framework for central enterprises, facilitating the smooth execution of new investment opportunities. “At the same time, in response to the downward trend of the domestic macro-economy, the downturn in hot industries, and the tightening of IPO regulatory policies, the in-house team adjusted pre-IPO deals in advance and effectively controlled the risk fermentation of invested projects by a combination of measures such as facilitating invested companies to seek IPOs on different markets, fulfill repurchase undertakings or offer compensation.” According to Wei from SAIC-GMAC Automotive Finance, the responsibilities of the company’s in-house team also need to change constantly. On the one hand, the team must understand the different missions of the industry at different stages of development, and take into account the characteristics of the industry chain and the stage of development in assessing legal risks and providing appropriate legal advice. On the other hand, the team needs to understand the drivers behind business needs and put forward systematic legal advice based on the business chain to offer the optimal solution for both business growth and risk prevention and control. CONTINUOUS CONTRIBUTION The common goal pursued by all the inhouse teams interviewed is to continue creating commercial value in the future. Yao emphasizes the importance of sustaining business contribution, stating, “What we focus on most is how to consistently, effectively, and systematically demonstrate our capabilities. Moving forward, we will develop strategic plans, identify appropriate procedures, and ultimately establish systematic
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