Freshfields

Senior Partner: Georgia Dawson

Managing Partners: Alan Mason and Rick van Aerssen

Asia Managing Partner: Matt O’Callaghan

Number of partners in Asia: 34

Number of lawyers in Asia: 200

Languages: Members of the firm speak over 60 languages, including English, Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, Vietnamese, French, German, Hindi, Malay, Indonesian, Spanish and Tamil.

Firm Overview

Freshfields is a global law firm with a long-standing track record of successfully supporting the world’s leading national and multinational corporations, financial institutions and governments on groundbreaking and business-critical mandates. Freshfields’ 2,800-plus lawyers deliver results worldwide through its own offices and alongside leading local firms. Freshfields’ commitment, local and multi-national expertise and business know-how means Freshfields’ clients rely on the firm when it matters most.

Freshfields in Asia-Pacific

You will find Freshfields at the heart of Asia’s most complex deals and cutting-edge regulatory matters. From helping on the first strategic foreign investment in Vietnam to setting up the Tokyo AIM market, from engineering a complex public takeover in Hong Kong to restructuring China’s telecoms industry, to aiding pioneering investments in Myanmar to leading the largest IPO in southeast Asia, Freshfields is often involved in the region's most important and ground-breaking transactions. Freshfields help clients liaise with global antitrust and regulatory authorities, create innovative financing and banking structures, and navigate cross-border international arbitration, litigation and employment issues across the region.

Main Areas of Practice

Antitrust, Competition & Trade:

Freshfields has unrivalled expertise in international, EU, US and national competition law matters. The firm advises major multinationals, financial institutions, governments and other clients on strategy, structuring and negotiations relating to all competition and related issues, including merger control and foreign investment clearances, abuse of dominance and cartel investigations, and follow-on and other antitrust litigation.

Contacts: Ninette Dodoo, Alastair Mordaunt, Kaori Yamada

Corporate/M&A:

Freshfields has many years’ experience helping clients make strategic investments and divestments into and out of Asia and are the ‘go to’ legal adviser for complex public and private M&A in the region. In the past nine years, Freshfields has advised on more cross-border M&A deals in Asia than any other law firm, consistently topping the Asia Pacific cross-border league tables.

Contacts: Robert Ashworth, Arun Balasubramanian, Noah Carr, Edward Freeman, Eric Johnson, Philip Li, Philip Morgan, Takeshi Nakao, Gordon Palmquist, Yuxin Shen, Sarah Su, Bui Thanh Tien, Alan Wang, Simon Weller.

Equity Capital Markets:

The firm is widely recognised as a ‘must have’ legal adviser for securities-related transactions throughout Asia and around the globe. In addition to its market-leading work on IPOs, Freshfields also maintains an active practice advising clients on rights issues, share placements, spin-off listings, secondary offerings and related compliance. The firm’s Asia-based lawyers are qualified to advise in respect of Hong Kong, English and New York law governed transactions.

Contacts: Arun Balasubramanian, Howie Farn, Grace Huang, Richard Wang, David Yi.

Dispute Resolution, including Arbitration:

Freshfields has helped clients manage some of the most high-profile and business critical disputes, multi-jurisdictional investigations, and politically sensitive international arbitrations in Asia in recent years. With expertise in Asia/US and Asia/EU contentious issues, its team has the experience to meet the increasingly international needs of clients in their regional disputes. The firm has acted on one of the highest-profile China-related arbitration to date; in the first-ever investment treaty arbitration brought by a Japanese investor; in one of the largest Asia investment treaty arbitrations; and in probably the largest-ever commercial dispute in Asia.

Contacts: Tim Mak, Nicholas Lingard, John Choong, Xin Liu, Samantha Tan, Rohit Bhat.

Finance, Restructuring & Insolvency:

Freshfields finance team has a wealth of experience advising corporate clients and financial institutions on event driven financings, refinancings and corporate treasury matters across the credit spectrum. The firm advises on financing for strategic transactions, to support growth strategies and major project development, and also where debt restructuring is needed to adapt to challenging market conditions. Freshfields Asia-based lawyers are qualified to advise in respect of Hong Kong, English and New York law governed transactions, and where needed draw on the expertise of colleagues in other jurisdictions to achieve the best outcomes for its clients.

Contacts: Daniel French, Bing Guan, Bui Thanh Tien, Daniel Anderson.

Regulatory, Investigations & Compliance:

Freshfields is a market leader in proactively identifying risks arising from legislative changes and helping multinational businesses comply with their regulatory requirements. Its focus is on assisting clients that are subject to multiple regimes and expanding into new regimes. The team is experienced in strategic advisory, transactional, investigative and enforcement issues relating to areas including: Anti-Bribery & Corruption; Sanctions; Financial Regulation & Compliance; Whistle-Blower & White Collar Crime; Employment; Data Protection & Security.

Contacts: Richard Bird, Stephanie Chiu, Xin Liu, Tim Mak, Matthew O’Callaghan.