THINK GLOBAL,
THINK Hong Kong
Huen Wong
Immediate Past President
The Law Society of Hong Kong
Tokyo and Osaka
15 & 17 May 2012
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Hong Kong –
An International Arbitration Centre
of Excellence
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(b) Hong Kong has been named as the world's freest
economy for the 17th year in the Index of Economic
Freedoms created by The Heritage Foundation and The
Wall Street Journal. The Index ranks economies on a
scale of one to 100 according to 10 economic
measurements of openness, the rule of law and
competitiveness.
(c) The assessment has been made annually since 1995, to
measure the freedom of the world's economies. 2010’s
index took into consideration 183 economies' policy
developments since the second half of 2009. Singapore
came second, Australia was third and New Zealand came
fourth.
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(o) Hong Kong has recently reformed its arbitration
law. Hong Kong now adopts a unitary regime of
arbitration on the basis of UNCITRAL Model
Law for all types of arbitration, abolishing the
distinction between domestic and international
arbitrations. The Model Law is widely accepted
by many jurisdictions around the world and is
familiar to practitioners from civil law as well as
common law jurisdictions. This further
reinforces Hong Kong as a leading centre for
international arbitration and dispute resolution.
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(p) Further, under the Mainland Judgments
(Reciprocal Enforcement) Ordinance, by the
choice of the parties, certain commercial
judgments by either the Mainland Chinese
courts or the Hong Kong courts may be enforced
reciprocally by the other court.
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Hong Kong –
World Class Legal Services
Provider
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(b) As a world-class and well-established legal services
provider, Hong Kong is fully capable to provide quality
legal support to the demands of international businesses.
(c) Currently, there are 1,266 registered foreign lawyers
from 28 different jurisdictions and 72 foreign law firms,
out of which more than 35% have US as their home
jurisdiction. Ten Mainland law firms have registered
offices in Hong Kong offering Mainland legal services
and four of them practise in association with Hong Kong
solicitors’ firms.
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•
For the past 5 years, the number of registered foreign
lawyers and foreign firms are steadily increasing at an
average annual rate of 11% and 15% respectively.
•
There are 7,986 Hong Kong solicitors, out of whom 6,782
are holding a practising certificate. There are 764 Hong
Kong law firms.
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(f) With the increasing opportunities arising from the
opening up of the legal services market in the Mainland,
52 local firms (representing more than 6% of all local
firms) have set up 67 representative offices across
Mainland China, including all the major cities of Beijing,
Shanghai and Guangzhou.
(g) Besides, there are 23 Hong Kong solicitors’ firms which
have set up a total of 39 Mainland representative offices
in Beijing and Shanghai registered at the Ministry of
Justice as representative offices of law firms from
foreign countries.
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(h) Of The Am Law Global 100 law firms ranked by
revenue (published in the October 2009 issue of
The American Lawyer), 57 have establishments in
Hong Kong, and 33 of them are practising as
local Hong Kong firms of solicitors.
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(i)
Having a comprehensive international network
and an excellent arbitration framework, Hong
Kong is capable of providing high-end legal
services to Japanese and international
enterprises advising on different aspects of their
businesses.
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•
Hong Kong lawyers are internationally recognised for
their skilled performance in resolving cross-boundary
disputes.
•
Law firms in Hong Kong have hands on experiences in
handling complex commercial deals in the world,
including the recent well known global offering by the
Agricultural Bank of China.
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•
We are confident that our Hong Kong legal
capabilities are able to effectively and efficiently
service the needs of Japanese clients for relevant
legal services when the opportunities come.
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Thank you !
www.hklawsoc.org.hk
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