22 ASIAN LEGAL BUSINESS CHINA • 亚洲法律杂志-中国版 SEPTEMBER 2024 increasing push to export Chinese legal standards. Consequently, Chinese companies now prefer collaborating with familiar domestic legal partners for their international expansion. This shift has led to a broadening and deepening of services provided by Chinese lawyers in supporting global expansion. In the past two years, Global Law Office’s Shenzhen branch has primarily supported clients in sectors such as manufacturing, mining, infrastructure, new energy and agriculture. Their focus has evolved from traditional outbound investment services to addressing overseas needs, including local company registration, corporate governance, labour law, intellectual property, taxation and customs. The firm notes: “Clients increasingly expect Chinese lawyers to lead in coordinating with overseas partners for routine cross-border contracts, compliance, trade and pre-investment legal matters. Beyond coordination, Chinese lawyers are also providing advanced legal services in areas like tax planning, cross-border IP, data export compliance and dispute resolution.” Lin emphasises that the current wave of “comprehensive overseas expansion” by Chinese companies necessitates a new legal services model, as the traditional approach of Chinese firms collaborating with local firms in host countries is no longer sufficient. He explains: “As Chinese companies grow into new-generation multinational companies, they require support in building cross-border legal, financial, taxation and organisational structures that meet global standards. Multinational companies must consider where to establish their overseas holding platforms, operations centres, finance hubs, supply chain networks and IP centres, making optimal arrangements across different jurisdictions. These structures must align with both the holding platform and host country’s regulations, considering factors like fundraising ease and future exit strategies.” To meet these evolving needs, East & Concord has assembled a specialised team in its GBA office, comprising eight partners and over 20 lawyers, to advise on overseas expansion across various fields and regions. In 2023, the office introduced comprehensive “one-stop legal, commercial, financial and tax services” to support companies expanding abroad. Lin notes: “In particular, since Internet companies are exporting their business models from Mainland China to overseas markets, integrated legal, commercial, financial and tax services can provide clients with comprehensive solutions that are feasible in business model, legally compliant and optimal in tax planning.” He adds that East & Concord’s overseas deal-making team now includes three senior consultants, each specialising in financial, taxation and business model consulting. “They all served as partners in the Big Four accounting firms and can work closely with lawyers to provide services integrating legal, financial, tax and organisational structure aspects for companies expanding overseas.” HONG KONG’S GATEWAY ROLE What role does Hong Kong, an important gateway to China in South China, play during this wave of “going global?” According to Lin, leveraging its resource ties with the Mainland, low transaction and tax costs as a midshore location, and convenience for fund-raising as a financial centre, Hong Kong “has always been an irreplaceable choice for Chinese companies to set up holding platforms for their overseas expansion, and is expected to play an ever more important role”. Since 2023, Lin has noticed a slew of policies introduced by Hong Kong to attract private enterprises, such as family office policies, tax incentives and the recent “patent box regime”. This regime refers to a form of tax incentive where relief can be granted on profits derived from eligible IPs created through R&D activities in Hong Kong. Lin notes, “This can attract Mainland companies to establish R&D and IP centres in Hong Kong, and further entice Chinese companies venturing overseas to set up holding platforms in the city.” Global Law Office similarly points out that the structures of many overseas expansion projects still use Hong Kong as the first overseas layer to connect domestic companies and their overseas outfits, “and many times Hong Kong companies act as either the acquirer or the target. Accordingly, Hong Kong law and Hong Kong litigation and arbitration have increasingly become the governing law and dispute resolution REGIONAL REPORT EV car Good Cat by Ora, a brand by Great Wall Motors, is displayed at the Bangkok International Motor show in Bangkok, Thailand/Reuters 以AI为代表的中国科技企业也加速了出海步伐
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