Deacons

Senior Partner: Lilian Chiang

Number of Partners: 53

Languages: English, Shanghainese, Chaozhou, Cantonese, Swedish, Japanese, Norwegian, German, Mandarin, Malay, Hindi, French, Hokkien, Fujinese, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, Korean

Firm Overview:

Deacons is Hong Kong’s premier independent law firm and advises some of the world’s leading companies, financial institutions and individuals in Hong Kong and mainland China on their most significant and complex matters. With over 170 years of experience providing legal services, 17 key service areas and three representative offices in Mainland China, Deacons offers clients the benefit of its close relationships with Hong Kong’s business community.

Key Service Areas:

Banking & Finance:

Deacons has built a leading position in the sector over many years of working for some of the world’s biggest banks, financial institutions and trading companies in financings across the region. The firm’s experience spans syndicated lending, acquisition, project and structured trade finance, and banking regulatory work.

Capital Markets:

The firm’s extensive experience spans all areas of corporate finance, capital markets, structured products and regulatory work — ranging from IPOs, secondary issues, debt financing and bond issues to public takeovers — making Deacons well-equipped to advice on fundraising solutions to suit any organisation.

China Trade & Investment:

With its Mandarin-speaking team, and the support of offices in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, Deacons can assist with everything from gaining approval for investment projects, cross-border M&A, joint ventures with Chinese companies, and putting in place supply and distribution agreements, to setting up offices and operations in China.

Corporate and M&A:

The firm’s highly regarded corporate team serves an extensive client base spanning a variety of sectors, advising on all aspects of transactional work, including private mergers, acquisitions and disposals, private equity and venture capital investments and exits, and local and cross-border joint ventures.

Corporate Services:

Deacons’ experienced team can help lessen the burden of complying with regulatory formalities allowing clients to focus on their core business. The firm’s highly ranked team offers cost-effective professional corporate services, including helping with company formation, company secretarial services, registered office provision, and the preparation and custody of statutory records to ensure that everything is fully compliant and up to date.

Competition:

The firm’s practice combines solid antitrust legal and economics experience with unparalleled in-depth knowledge of business practices in Hong Kong. Its lawyers and in-house economist have extensive experience advising companies and senior executives in a wide range of competition matters.

Construction:

Deacons has considerable experience of advising on major projects across the region. The firm’s non-contentious work encompasses the full range of contractual and risk management advice, and spans both public and private sector projects, as well as resolving disputes through traditional and alternative dispute resolution techniques.

Employment & Pensions:

Deacons assists a wide range of clients with a variety of issues, including employment documentation, employee benefits and incentives, day-to-day HR issues, labour and employment disputes, pension regulations, work and residence visas, and the employment aspects of M&A and restructurings.

Family Law:

The Deacons team understands the importance of protecting clients’ interests and resolving matrimonial disputes quickly and effectively, to minimise emotional distress and preserve family harmony where possible, especially with the increase in marriages involving international elements, global residences and complex worldwide family assets and businesses. The team is experienced in handling a wide range of family related matters in both contentious and non-contentious settings.

Intellectual Property (IP):

The firm’s award-winning IP practice offers a seamless service across Hong Kong and mainland China covering all areas of IP law, including the protection, exploitation and enforcement of copyright, designs, patents and trademarks (including the direct filing of Chinese trade marks through its Beijing trade mark agency).

Investment Funds:

The largest investment funds team in Hong Kong, Deacons acts for a high proportion of international and local asset managers on matters ranging from authorised funds and products to alternative investment funds and all related regulatory work.

Private Clients:

Deacons’ experienced private client team can help with everything from local and international tax planning, wealth management and succession planning using wills, trusts and other structures, to philanthropy, real estate, probate and administration of estates, trust disputes and the running and restructuring of family businesses.

Data Protection and Privacy:

Deacons offers a seamless service across Hong Kong and Mainland China, advising on the full range of issues including data privacy policies and compliance, exploitation of data, cybersecurity and handling data breaches, data transfer, privacy issues in advertising and marketing, as well as investigations and appeals before the Privacy Commissioner and other enforcement authorities.

Insurance:

With Hong Kong’s largest specialist insurance practice, Deacons advises international and domestic insurers, intermediaries, regulators and others on a variety of matters, including large international insurance and reinsurance coverage disputes, regulatory issues, professional indemnity claims, insurance insolvencies and corporate deals in the regional insurance market.

Litigation & Dispute Resolution:

Deacons’ reputation is founded on efficiently handling a wide range of work, from large scale, complex, multijurisdictional litigation to more routine matters, in every area from general commercial and contractual cases, insurance and partnership disputes, to highly technical banking, IP, trusts, real estate, employment and tax litigation.

Real Estate:

With a team of over 50 experienced staff, Deacons provides high-quality, integrated real estate advice on everything from the sale and purchase of real estate, property management and landlord/tenant issues, real estate finance, planning and zoning, real estate tax and dispute resolution.

Regulatory:

Deacons’ regulatory team is highly experienced in dealings with the HKMA, SFC, OCI and MPFA, and in handling wider issues concerning fund authorisation and insurance, as well as insider dealing and market misconduct. Its commercial regulatory work ranges from regulatory investigations and data protection to bribery and corruption, discrimination and competition.