Catherine Pan-Giordano

Catherine is a leading lawyer on U.S.-China cross-border legal matters; She solves complex legal problems effectively and efficiently.

Catherine is a Partner and Corporate Group Head in the firm’s New York office and chairs the firm’s globally recognized U.S.-China Practice. Catherine serves as a member of the Firm’s Management Committee, the executive body of the Firm.

As a highly skilled attorney and trusted advisor, and one of the most prominent Chinese-speaking business lawyers in the U.S., Catherine is relied on by our clients to handle their strategic corporate transactions and to solve complex legal problems for their business. She has a strong client following among some of the world’s largest corporations, financial institutions and business leaders. She frequently serves as their chief outside legal counsel.

The strategic corporate transactions Catherine handles include foreign direct investment (FDI), greenfield and brownfield projects, mergers & acquisitions, joint ventures, equity and debt financings, and other cross-border corporate and commercial transactions. Her transactional achievements include:

designing global corporate and investment structures for multinational corporations to successfully achieve their overseas business expansion goals;

representing a series of Chinese companies in securing strategic assets and cutting-edge technologies in the U.S. through mergers, acquisitions and investments; and

representing companies and investment funds in strategic investments into industries and technology areas that represent the future economy.

In addition to her transactional experience, Catherine also oversees regulatory compliance (focusing on national security, export control and sanction), government investigation and dispute resolution matters for corporate clients as their chief outside general counsel. She works closely with our regulatory compliance and litigation teams in litigation prevention and risk management, as well as in mapping out important international strategies for our corporate clients. Catherine employs highly successful and proven techniques to solve complex business disputes. Her regulatory compliance and dispute resolution work includes:

successfully removing multiple Chinese companies from various U.S. government “blacklists”, including the Military Company List, the BIS Entity List and the Unverified List;

successfully preventing multiple Chinese companies from being included in various U.S. government “blacklists”, including the BIS Entity List, the UFLPA Entity List and the FCC Covered List;

successfully navigating numerous CFIUS and export control matters in the context of U.S.-inbound corporate investments and cross-border M&A transactions;

winning post-closing conflicts regarding net working capital and earn-out payments through effective negotiation and dispute resolution;

solving founders’ disputes and shareholder disputes, including several intense incidents that occurred on the eve of corporate IPOs or bet-the-company transactions;

protecting minority shareholders’ rights and economic stakes in several controlling shareholder dominated situations;

guiding several Chinese public companies or their directors and officers through internal and SEC investigation processes and achieving positive results through effective defense strategies;

representing universities and research institutions in NIH, NSF, DOJ and FBI investigations relating to federal research grants; and

representing researchers and faculty members across the U.S. in NIH, NSF, DOJ and FBI investigations relating to China ties.

Catherine was elected Partner in 2012, one of our youngest attorneys to make partner.

Outside of her legal work, Catherine is a supporter of the arts and education. She is a Member of the Committee of 100, a Trustee of China Institute and a member of the Board of Governors of the University of St. Thomas School of Law.

For a more comprehensive list of deals and cases Catherine has handled, please see the Experience (Representative Work) section.