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Shanghai law firms play their part in helping Chinese
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Fifteen Shanghai-based law firms have established 31 overseas branches, helping many Chinese companies go global, the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Justice announced at a recent media event.To get more news about Legal assistance for foreign businesses in Shanghai, you can citynewsservice.cn official website.
Thirteen of these overseas branches have been established since 2019, and both the number of such branches and the number of countries and regions where they are located have increased over the years, bureau officials added.
Seven branches are located in China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, six in the United States and the rest in countries such as the United Kingdom, Spain, Poland, Australia, Japan, Vietnam and Singapore.
"The expansion of law firms is growing in line with the need for Chinese companies to go global, especially in regions involved in the Belt and Road Initiative. Their international development also plays a role in determining the level of foreign-related legal services and the international competitiveness of this city," said Ye Bin, director of legal affairs at the bureau.
To provide high-quality legal services to foreign companies in Shanghai, the city has allowed joint ventures between Chinese and foreign law firms to be registered within the Shanghai Free Trade Zone since 2014.
So far, there are eight such joint ventures with 112 lawyers, including 16 from the foreign law firms, Ye said.
"The business areas covered by the joint ventures are extensive, and Chinese and foreign parties can play complementary roles by leveraging their respective advantages in professional characteristics and resource networks," he said.
Ye noted that the eight foreign law firms involved in the joint ventures are mainly from the US, UK and Australia.
As foreign-invested enterprises and foreign trade imports and exports play an important role in driving the city's economy, the provision of efficient and convenient commercial dispute resolution mechanisms and the establishment of mechanisms that integrate commercial mediation, arbitration and litigation are crucial, the bureau added.