Category Lawyer, Attorney & Legal Firms

EMPLOYMENT LAW ALLIANCE EXPANDS PRESENCE IN CHINA

San Francisco –
Partners from the Beijing, Shanghai, Dalian, Shenzhen and Haikou offices of Jun Le Law Office Join ELA

SAN FRANCISCO – The Employment Law Alliance (ELA) has added five new member offices across China, giving the network an on-the-ground presence in 30 member offices in Asia. The ELA is the world’s largest network of more than 3,000 specialized labor and employment lawyers dedicated to assisting employers with legal needs in the U.S. and internationally.

The recent additions are partners from the China-based Jun Le Law Office and include: Dongpeng Wang in the Beijing office, Jianjun Ma in the Shanghai office, Jie Li in the Dalian Office, Xueyong Jiang in the Shenzhen office, and Ruhai Xia in the Haikou office.

“International corporations have long been attracted to China’s extraordinary economic growth and are rapidly opening facilities throughout the country. Ensuring the companies’ policies are compliant with Chinese labor and employment laws is difficult as the laws often vary from city to city,” said Stephen J. Hirschfeld, Esq., CEO of the ELA. “The ELA gives multi-national companies comprehensive, efficient and cost-effective assistance on the ground in each city, region and jurisdiction via truly local experts. We are thrilled to be working with partners at Jun Le as these highly regarded attorneys have intimate knowledge of China’s business practices and employment regulations.”

The ELA offers in-house counsel and human resource executives comprehensive legal guidance in every U.S. state and internationally. Its Global Employer Handbook allows free, 24/7 access to updated legal reference materials and information. The ELA also serves as a resource for trends and issues in employment via its America At Work polls on matters impacting daily business operations around the globe.

“We are pleased to be working collaboratively with our fellow ELA members around the globe. Not only will we be offering our employment law expertise here in China, but our clients with international operations will benefit tremendously from our ability to tap a wealth of reputable legal resources in the vast majority of the world. Not even a global law firm is able to provide such comprehensive experience and coverage,” said Wang.

About The Employment Law Alliance:
The Employment Law Alliance is the world’s largest network of labor and employment lawyers. With specialists in all 50 states and more than 100 countries, the ELA provides multi-state and multi-national companies with seamless and cost-effective services worldwide. On the net at: www.employmentlawalliance.com.

Legal job market tightens in China 2009

The outlook provided by both employers and legal recruitment agencies is not so positive for legal job seekers in China. Unlike in the past few years, when employment opportunities for legal professionals was plentiful, 2009 will see a continuing reduction in legal recruiting opportunities as the global economy slows.

“Except for a few newcomers to the market from the US and the UK, existing foreign and even local law firms will continue cost-cutting measures to avoid redundancies and trim their teams in China to the right size,” said Xia, founder and managing director of DaCare Legal Career.

According to Xia, a wait-and-see mentality will characterise the job market, at least for the first quarter of 2009. Capital markets and real estate attorneys will either be let go or redeployed to working on M&A or even FDI deals. Attorneys in the M&A and private equity practice areas should not worry too much about losing jobs, although PricewaterhouseCoopers’ latest report has revealed that the number of M&A deals in the Mainland have almost halved compared to the same period in 2007. The safest practice areas are expected to include employment, litigation, distressed assets, restructuring and bankruptcy.

A managing partner of a well-established international firm in Beijing, who did not wish to be identified, confirmed Xia’s prediction. He noted that a number of international firms in China have laid off legal staff in the past few months and around 80% of the international law firms here are currently experiencing a relatively quite time.

One of the reasons for the rising number of job casualties was the aggressive expansion of some firms who hired a large number of lawyers from local law firms earlier this year. Many leading local firms told ALB that they would slow down on recruitment plans, but would not stop taking on good talent.

Nevertheless, there remains some good news for employers with a budget and partners who are looking to move.

“Some clients are taking advantage of this special market situation to upgrade their team so with the same budget they can now put a better team together,” said Xia. “Another interesting phenomenon is that partner search, contrary to common understanding, is thought to become more active, especially for those who carry a book of business.”

The in-house side will also see a similar pattern and outlook. The financial crisis will trickle along the ‘food chain’, slowing down many industries including auto, shipping and hi-tech. Some in-house openings will become available, especially for mid- to senior-level counsels with a high degree of independence. The market will further concentrate on hiring more local talent, partly as a cost reduction effort, partly for being more effective.

One uncertainty, though, is to what extent multinational companies will turn to the China market for a solution when their home markets are experiencing serious trouble. “It’s very likely that many MNCs will come to this market, as a better option. General counsel will need to be better prepared for more hands-on work when application for headcount in 2009 will be frustrating and excruciating,” said Xia.

In the light of salary trends in 2009, it will be unrealistic to expect any salary hike. Xia suggested that job candidates will set their eyes more on guaranteed payment, rather on ‘target bonus’ or long-term incentives where the company performance part of salaries is a big question mark.

“Candidates will be more cautious when switching jobs, though some will actively look for a change if they are in a precarious industry,” Xia said.

Rochester Nixon Peabody Opens Office in Shangai, China

By Elizabeth Stull

The law firm of Nixon Peabody LLP on Monday announced the opening of its Shanghai office, the firm’s first office in Asia and its second office overseas.

Scott Turner, managing partner of Nixon Peabody’s Rochester office, said the Shanghai location will benefit Upstate companies interested in China, and Chinese companies interested in coming to Upstate New York

“For Upstate clients it means a whole lot, because we’ve found a huge interest in our Chinese marketplace,” particularly among optics companies,” Turner said.

The new office is located on the 18th floor of the Bund Center, a distinctive luxury commercial skyscraper completed in 2002 and flanked by Westin luxury hotels on Yan An East Road, near Shanghai’s historic commercial Bund area.

Nixon Peabody plans to staff the office with a rotating team of two West Coast U.S. partners, James C. Chapman and Daniel Deshon. Chapman is a partner in the firm’s Silicon Valley office who represents companies conducting business in China. Deshon, of San Francisco, was managing partner of O’Melveny & Myers LLP’s Hong Kong office from 1999 to 2003. Nixon Peabody plans to add permanent legal staff in Shanghai in the near future.

Lori Green, a corporate transactional partner in Rochester, said a dozen U.S. attorneys regularly work with the China group, either on “inbound or outbound work” for companies looking to work inside or outside of China. Partners Harry P. Trueheart III (Nixon Peabody LLP chairman), Peter H. Durant, Jean H. McCreary and Richard A. McGuirk are among this group.

“China has one of the most dynamic economies in the world today,” Truehart said. “Our new Shanghai office offers unique opportunities for our clients’ growing business needs as we help U.S. companies understand and navigate the complexities of doing business in China.”

Nixon & Peabody’s China group advises clients on how to structure venture capital and private equity investments in China, resolve business and trade disputes, protect and enforce intellectual property rights, and structure and document acquisitions of Chinese domestic companies.

New law to protect rights of workers under contract

THE Shanghai Labor and Social Security Bureau yesterday issued guidance for workers and employers when the new Labor Contract Law comes into effect on January 1 next year.

The bureau has issued a pamphlet to explain the new law to business to avoid breaching regulations when signing contracts with employees.

Adopted on June 29 by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s top legislature, the Labor Contract Law aims to improve workers’ rights and establish a stable and harmonious relationship between them and their employers.

The new law splits contracts into three types – fixed-term, open-term and job-based.

An open-term contract should be signed after workers have been employed by the same unit for 10 years.

Wang Yang, director of the labor relation department of the bureau, said: “Previously when laborers worked for 10 years for the same enterprise, the company would discuss whether to sign an open-term contract with the worker, so it depended on the employer. But after the Labor Contract Law takes effect, it will depend on the employees, if they meet the circumstances.”

Wang also said the rights of laborers on probation were often infringed upon. The new law stipulates that the probation period should not exceed one month if the period of the labor contract is less than one year, and not be more than six months if the contract period is more than three years.

It also requires the salary of the probationer should not be less than 80 percent of the lowest salary for the same post.

According to the new law, businesses should set up a collective consultation system under which, when the employers make important decisions on issues such as salary, vacation, training and discipline, they should put their plans to a meeting attended by representatives of workers for discussion.
The law also has specific stipulations on the implementation and termination of contracts, with the aim of establishing a stable relationship with workers.

China’s current labor contract system was set up in the Labor Law enacted in 1995. The Labor Contract Law is the country’s first law governing contracts.

Probation Period Should Be Included In Chinese Labor Contracts

China’s Labor and Social Security Department has issued a reminder in local media to new college graduates that their probation period should be included in labor contracts with employers as part of their employment term and the trial use period must not be more than six months.

Specifically, the Tianjin Municipal labor and Social Security Department has said that the probationary period is for the employer and the employee to mutually understand each other and make a mutual decision. According to relevant laws, a probationary period shall be set between an employer and its employee, but the period should be included in the formal labor contract.

According to China’s new Labor Contract Law which is going to take effect on January 1, 2008, the probationary period must not be more than 1 month if the labor contract term is less than one year, and the probation period should not be over two months when the contract period is less than three years. The probation period for a labor contract whose term is more than three years should be less than six months.

In addition, the employer should only set one probation term with the employees, and during the probation period, the employer must offer social insurance for employees.

U.S. legal firms send work overseas to cut client bills

NEW YORK: Bruce Masterson, the chief operating officer of Socrates Media, asked his outside counsel to customize a residential lease for all 50 U.S. states in 2003. The firm’s estimate: about $400,000. He rejected that price tag and hired QuisLex, in Hyderabad, India, which did it for $45,000.

“It was good quality,” said Masterson, whose Chicago-based company publishes legal forms on the Internet. “We’ve been working together ever since.”

Clients are pushing law firms like Jones Day and Kirkland & Ellis to send basic legal tasks to India, where lawyers tag documents and investigate takeover targets for as little as $20 an hour. The firms are reacting to a trend that will move about 50,000 U.S. legal jobs overseas by 2015, according to Boston-based Forrester Research.

“The objective is to have only the most valuable people in London or New York, and the others in India, China or Columbus, Ohio,” said Robert Profusek, co-head of the mergers and acquisitions practice at Jones Day in New York, who sends low-end work to the cheapest locations and plans to open a document center in India. “Lawyers are service providers. We are not gods.”

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Sponsor Link: DaCare Legal Search (China)
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Companies with in-house legal departments in India include DuPont, Cisco Systems, and Morgan Stanley, according to ValueNotes Database.

The Indian legal-services industry will more than quadruple to $640 million by 2010 from $146 million in 2006, ValueNotes, of Maharashtra, India, said.

General Electric sends about $3 million a year in routine legal work to its Indian affiliate, said Janine Dascenzo, the GE managing counsel for legal operations.

“India has very talented lawyers,” she said. “But it’s a misconception that you can just send work there and it gets done. You need proper supervision and security.”

Kirkland & Ellis, the seventh-largest U.S. law firm, works with offshore attorneys at the client’s request, said Gregg Kirchhoefer, a senior partner in the firm’s outsourcing and technology transaction practice.

“I’m not an advocate of offshoring legal services, but having worked in this area for so long, I understand the value of the model,” he said. Typically, clients hire a provider and Chicago-based Kirkland helps manage the attorneys, Kirchhoefer said.

One incentive for corporations to send legal work overseas is that ethics rules compel law firms to disclose their profit margins. Traditionally, law firms charge clients markups of as much as three times what they pay associates and contract attorneys.

“Law firms can earn more by using labor they can mark up without disclosure,” said Stephen Gillers, professor of legal ethics at New York University School of Law. “Clients are knowledgeable about costs, and they want to negotiate the markup on these charges.”

Not every law firm has accepted the trend.

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Sponsor Link: DaCare Legal Search (China)
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“Some firms are spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt,” says David Perla, co-chief executive of Pangea3, an offshore legal-services company based in New York and Mumbai. “They see any competition as bad and they’ll raise any issues as to why you shouldn’t go offshore.”

Of the 10 highest-grossing U.S. law firms, seven declined to comment on outsourcing. Only one, Chicago-based Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw, said it does not use the practice.

“I don’t think law firms are ashamed of offshoring,” Perla said. “The firms that are having success with it aren’t talking, because they view it as a competitive advantage.”

Of about 100 third-party legal services providers in India, clients give top marks to Pangea3 and New York-based Integreon Managed Solutions, according to The Black Book of Outsourcing, a survey published in July by Brown-Wilson Group, which is based in Clearwater, Florida.

About 80 percent of Pangea3’s clients are corporations and 20 percent are law firms, Perla said.

“Some firms are coming to us because in-house clients suggested it or pressured them,” Perla said. “Others want to come to the client first and offer a solution.”

Integreon, which provides legal services in India, the Philippines and Fargo, North Dakota, has long-term contracts with about 45 companies and 15 law firms, said Liam Brown, the company’s chief executive.

Law firms contribute 45 percent to offshore revenue, while corporate law departments contribute 36 percent, ValueNotes said.

Integreon recruits lawyers from second-tier law schools in India and managers from the litigation practices of firms such as Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, said Brown. After training in India, managers relocate to New York or Los Angeles.

In India, legal education is based on common law and conducted in English, requiring two or three years of classes. The country produces about 80,000 law school graduates a year, according to ValueNotes, compared with about 44,000 in the United States.

Offshore companies charge $10 to $25 an hour on low-end work and $25 to $90 an hour on advanced jobs. Junior Indian lawyers might earn as much as $8,160 a year, according to ValueNotes, compared with the $160,000 average salary for associates in major U.S. cities.

Janice D’souza, a 26-year-old lawyer in Pangea3’s litigation and research department in Mumbai, said she makes three times as much as she would at an Indian law firm.

“At an Indian law firm, generally your potential is not recognized at an early stage,” D’souza said. “Here it’s talent-based. In the near future, I think I will be a department manager.”

Baker & McKenzie’s Profits per Partner Top $1 Million Mark

Baker & McKenzie, the world’s largest law firm, has announced a 20 percent increase in its revenue this year.

The Chicago-based firm is set to announce today that it grossed $1.83 billion in its 2007 fiscal year, which ended June 30. That compared with $1.52 billion in 2006.

The firm will also report that, for the first time, its profits per partner were over the $1 million mark. The firm said it had profits per partner in 2007 of $1.06 million, up 22 percent from the year before.

Chairman John Conroy said Wednesday that he was pleased with the results, which he attributed to a strategic plan the firm adopted three years ago.

Since then, the firm has whittled its practices down to 11 core groups and has focused on deepening its relationships with the types of large multinational clients who can best utilize Baker & McKenzie’s global network. The firm has 3,600 lawyers in 70 offices in 38 countries.

Conroy said the firm was focusing particularly on four key markets: New York, London, China and Japan. “We want to leverage the international positions we’ve had into these prioritized markets,” he said.

He noted that Baker & McKenzie was the largest foreign law firm in China, including Hong Kong, with a total of 240 lawyers.

For such a large firm, Baker & McKenzie has long had a notably modest presence in New York. The firm made a major push into the market in 2005 when it hired most of the New York office of Coudert Brothers. Conroy said the firm had continued to expand through lateral hiring.

“We always knew if we had more critical mass in New York, we could take it to another level,” he said. “This is the year we kicked it into gear.”

Baker & McKenzie’s results come in the wake of earnings announcements by the firms of London’s Magic Circle, which it most resembles in terms of size and geographic sprawl. But those firms, with their strong London-based corporate practices, have generally been more profitable. This year was no exception, with firms like Linklaters and Clifford Chance mostly surpassing $2 billion in revenue and $2 million in profits per partner.

Lehman, Lee & Xu and Italian Partner Carone & Partners Launch Italian Desk

Beijing, China, July 06, 2007 –(PR.com)– Miss Valentina Salmoiraghi, an associate of the Italian law firm Carone & Partners will be working in Lehman, Lee & Xu’s Beijing Office, managing the firms’ Italian Desk in China.

Starting on June 15th, she will be in charge of supporting the team of Italian and Chinese attorneys put together by Carone & Partners and Lehman, Lee & Xu to represent Italian Clients in China.

Italian companies can now rely on an Italian-speaking lawyer in China which will improve communication among the attorneys involved on the relevant projects. The decision to start the Italian Desk at Lehman, Lee and Xu has been taken in order to fulfill and satisfy the increasing number and complexity of requests of engagement that the allied firms are facing. Moreover, through the Italian Desk the firms will be in the best position to provide outstanding legal assistance to Chinese clients wishing to invest in Italy.

To learn more about the firms, please visit Carone & Partners at www.cplex.it and Lehman, Lee & Xu at www.lehmanlaw.com.

Carone & Partners is an innovative and dynamic Italian firm which combines the expertise of Italian and Chinese lawyers to assist clients in international transactions related to China and Italy/EU. The firm has offices in Milan and Rome.

Lehman, Lee & Xu is a prominent Chinese corporate law firm and trademark and patent agency. The firm has offices in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Macau, and Mongolia and is managed by Mr. Edward Lehman, who has two decades of legal experience in China.

Fifteen New Partners For Davis Polk – Law Firm & Legal News

NEW YORK– LAWFUEL – The Law Firm Newswire –Davis Polk & Wardwell today announced that Bjorn Bjerke, Mary Conway, Michael Davis, Avi Gesser, Harald Halbhuber, Kimberley D. Harris, Kirtee Kapoor, Jinsoo H. Kim, James C. Lin, Arthur S. Long, Mark M. Mendez, Edmund Polubinski III, Lanny A. Schwartz, Sarah K. Solum and Mischa Travers have been elected partners of the firm effective July 1, 2007. Davis Polk now has 160 partners in its offices in New York, Menlo Park, Washington, D.C., London, Paris, Frankfurt, Madrid, Hong Kong, Beijing and Tokyo.

Mr. Bjerke is a corporate lawyer focusing on complex structured products and derivatives including asset-backed debt instruments, fund linked instruments and credit based arrangements. His recent transactions include representing a large real-estate fund complex in a multi-billion dollar lending arrangement; representing large financial institutions in developing various fund-linked structures and derivative trading platforms and establishing synthetic CDO structures. He also represented ISDA as drafting counsel in connection with the 2006 ISDA Fund Derivatives Definitions and Delta Air Lines in connection with certain financing arrangements linked to Delta Sky Miles.

Ms. Conway is a tax lawyer concentrating in investment management matters, including the formation and operation of private equity funds, hedge funds, mutual funds and other pooled investment vehicles. She has provided advice to Chilton Investment Company, Credit Suisse, Crestview Partners, FrontPoint Partners, HRJ Capital, Integrated Finance Limited, J.P. Morgan, Magnetar Capital and Morgan Stanley, among others. Her practice includes partnership matters and international tax matters.

Mr. Davis is a corporate lawyer concentrating in mergers and acquisitions. The matters he has worked on recently include advising IPSCO in connection with its proposed sale to SSAB Sventskt Stål; Marsh & McLennan in connection with the proposed sale of Putnam Investments to Great-West Lifeco; IPSCO on its acquisition of NS Group; FrontPoint Partners on its sale to Morgan Stanley; MCI on its sale to Verizon; Ford on its acquisition of plants from, and the restructuring of its business relationship with, Visteon; and various other private equity and venture capital transactions.

Mr. Gesser is a litigator concentrating in securities class actions and enforcement, white-collar criminal defense matters and complex commercial cases. Currently, he is representing a major investment bank in class actions involving analyst independence issues. He also recently served as a lead negotiator of a multi-year comprehensive agreement between a large consumer products company and multiple governmental bodies related to international trade issues. He has represented corporations and individuals in various investigations that have been resolved favorably prior to trial. He was also part of the litigation team representing Delta Air Lines in its Chapter 11 restructuring.

Mr. Halbhuber is a corporate lawyer in the London office. His practice focuses on a broad range of corporate finance and mergers and acquisitions transactions. In corporate finance, he has advised both issuers and underwriters on debt and equity transactions. Most recently, he worked on several high-yield debt issuances by European issuers. He has also worked on several initial public offerings and rights offerings. His recent M&A transactions include advising Morgan Stanley on acquisitions in Russia, Italy and the U.K., and Carl Zeiss SMT in the structuring of a joint venture with Cymer and the acquisition of a U.S. nanotechnology company.

Ms. Harris is a litigator with extensive experience representing corporate clients in a variety of criminal, regulatory, and complex civil matters. Recent representations include: the Audit Committee of an auto parts manufacturer in connection with an internal investigation, as well as related criminal and regulatory investigations by the federal government; a major investment bank in connection with criminal and regulatory investigations of the bank’s IPO allocation practices; a former director of the New York Stock Exchange in connection with an investigation by the New York Attorney General and the SEC; and a major pharmaceutical company in connection with multiple complex civil class actions in both state and federal court.

Mr. Kapoor is a corporate lawyer who has had extensive experience in corporate finance, restructurings, workouts and mergers and acquisitions transactions. His experience also includes several transactions in India. His recent matters include advising The Gillette Company in connection with its $57 billion acquisition by The Procter & Gamble Company; Oracle Corporation on its $600 million acquisition of a majority stake in i-flex solutions; Oracle Corporation on its $5.85 billion acquisition of Siebel Systems and Delta Air Lines on its Chapter 11 restructuring generally and in connection with the over $10 billion unsolicited bid from US Airways.

Ms. Kim is a corporate lawyer concentrating in lending and other corporate finance transactions. She represents corporate clients and financial institutions in secured acquisition and other leveraged financings, unsecured financings, debt restructurings and exit financings. Recent representations include Freeport-McMoran Copper & Gold in a $11 billion senior secured financing in connection with its acquisition of Phelps Dodge, J.P. Morgan in a $4.5 billion debtor-in-possession facility for Delphi, Delta Air Lines in a $2.5 billion senior secured exit financing, and Goldman Sachs Credit Partners and Credit Suisse in a leveraged acquisition financing for Education Management.

Mr. Lin is a corporate lawyer in the Hong Kong office, advising on public and private corporate finance transactions, including initial public offerings, high-yield debt offerings and private equity investments. He advised China Merchants Bank on its $2.66 billion HKSE listing, Air China on its $1.24 billion HKSE/LSE listing; and the underwriters in the privatization and NYSE/HKSE listing of Aluminum Corporation of China. Mr. Lin has also worked on several NASDAQ IPOs, including the $124 million listing of Baidu.com and the $468 million listing of Himax Technologies. He regularly advises a number of Asian high-technology companies on U.S. law matters.

Mr. Long is a corporate lawyer advising U.S. and foreign banks on the regulatory implications of M&A transactions; private equity investments; the offering of new financial products, including derivatives; enforcement , compliance and bank insolvency issues; and, in the case of foreign banks, establishing U.S. offices. Representative matters he has worked on include Banco Santander’s investment in Sovereign Bancorp; SLM Corporation (Sallie Mae) on its proposed sale; the acquisition by Citizens Financial Group of Charter One Financial; Citigroup’s acquisition of Banamex; Banco Bilbao Vizcaya’s merger with Argentaria; and JPMorgan’s investment in KorAm Bank.

Mr. Mendez is a corporate lawyer focusing on equity derivatives. Recently, he has advised Citigroup, Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs as book-running managers of a $1.5 billion offering by General Motors of convertible senior debentures and a Citigroup affiliate on the related capped call transaction; CVS Corporation in connection with a $2.5 billion collared accelerated share repurchase; Montpelier Re Holdings in connection with two variable share forward sale agreements; Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch in connection with the issuance of debt securities mandatorily exchangeable for shares of Class A common stock of Nuveen Investments; and JPMorgan in connection with the Microsoft Employee Stock Option Transfer Program.

Mr. Polubinski is a litigator representing corporations and individuals in a wide range of securities, professional liability, products liability, general commercial and acquisition-related litigation in federal and state courts. He also represents corporate and individual clients in investigations and other proceedings before various regulatory agencies, including the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Internal Revenue Service, and the New York Stock Exchange. Recent matters include the defense of an investment banking client in putative class action antitrust litigations; the representation of a corporate issuer and individual clients in class action securities litigation and a related SEC investigation; the defense of a major pharmaceutical company in nationwide consumer protection and product liability litigation; and the representation through trial of a big four accounting firm in litigation arising out of the failure of a large national bank.

Mr. Schwartz is a corporate lawyer advising on securities compliance, regulatory and transactional matters. His clients include major international banks, broker-dealers, securities exchanges, consulting firms, a securities industry trade association and a large life settlement provider. From 1999 to 2005, he was executive vice president and general counsel of the Philadelphia Stock Exchange. Previously, he was managing director and counsel at Bankers Trust Company, specializing in bank and broker-dealer regulation and investment banking. He speaks and writes regularly on securities market structure and regulatory issues, and was formerly a member of the adjunct faculty of Columbia University School of Law.

Ms. Solum is a corporate lawyer in the Menlo Park office, advising on capital markets transactions, mergers and acquisitions, SEC disclosure and corporate governance. Recent capital markets transactions include convertible debt offerings for Cadence Systems, Cypress Semiconductor and Equinix; investment grade debt offerings for Comcast, Oracle and Seagate; follow-on offerings for Kaiser Aluminum, Wet Seal and Onyx Pharmaceuticals; initial public offerings for Chipotle Mexican Grill and CAI International; and McDonald’s spin-out of Chipotle Mexican Grill. Mergers and acquisitions she has worked on recently include advising NetIQ on its sale to Attachmate WRQ and Oracle on its acquisitions of Siebel Systems and PeopleSoft.

Mr. Travers is a corporate lawyer in the Menlo Park office, advising technology companies and their underwriters and investors on mergers and acquisitions, securities offerings and other corporate transactions. Recent matters he has worked on include KLA-Tencor’s acquisitions of ADE, Therma-Wave, SensArray and OnWafer; Software AG’s acquisition of webMethods; Affymetrix’s acquisition of ParAllele; Comcast’s strategic partnership with TiVo; a $2.25 billion debt offering by Comcast Corporation; Affymax’s initial public offering; convertible debt offerings by Borland Software, Boston Properties, Informatica, Intel, Macrovision and Xilinx; and various investments in private companies by affiliates of Richemont.

China labour law seen costing foreign cos more

HONG KONG, June 12 (Reuters) – A new employment law in China will increase labour costs for foreign companies and restrict their flexibility in hiring staff, Australian law firm Minter Ellison said on Tuesday.
However the law, expected to go into effect in January, will also make it easier for companies to make large-scale layoffs in certain circumstances, such as bankruptcy.

The law is partly aimed at protecting employees in the private sector, lawyers say, and keeping up with changes in the labour market as a result of China’s rapid economic expansion.

Thirty percent of new jobs in the country are now in service industries and private enterprises have replaced state-owned enterprises as the major employers.

“The greater part of the workforce is now employed by private enterprises and that brings a fear that those organisations don’t necessarily have the interests of workers at heart,” Pattie Walsh, an employment lawyer at Minter Ellison, told a conference in Hong Kong on Tuesday.

Foreign companies, which have flocked to China to tap into the country’s booming economy, have favoured fixed-term employment contracts for local employees as laying off staff in China is difficult.

But under the new law, all companies will have to pay compensation at the end of a fixed contract and will have to allow employees to switch to an open-ended contract after twice renewing a fixed contract.

Lawyers also say probationary periods will be less effective because an employer will have to show evidence that an employee has failed to perform during probation before they can dismiss them.

“That means a company will have to monitor the employee during the probation period much more closely and will need to set criteria or an appraisal system so they can prove that an employee is not fulfilling the role,” Walsh said. “This will put more pressure on the employee selection process to get the right people in.”

Some analysts say foreign companies are being targeted in a drive to increase unionisation and U.S. retailer Wal-Mart Stores Inc and fast-food chain McDonald’s , which has been accused of breaching minimum wage laws, are among companies that have moved to set up branches of state-backed unions.

Walsh said an existing employment law, introduced in 1995, is not always enforceable because it applies differently depending on the region and is often ignored in favour of local practices.

A final draft of the new labour contracts law is expected to be published within weeks and lawyers expect it to become effective on Jan. 1, 2008.

Many employees in China are working without formal contracts but the new law will require every employee to have a written contract drawn up within a month of starting work and companies will be liable to pay compensation if there is no contract.

Companies will however have more flexibility to lay off large numbers of staff in the event of bankruptcy, production difficulties, relocation to prevent or control pollution and changing economic circumstances.

Walsh said this indicated Beijing was bowing to pressure from companies to enable them to take difficult decisions when they go through tough times.

The law will also modify a “non-compete” clause, enabling a company to stop a senior member of staff or some other employee with confidential company information from joining a competitor within two years of leaving the company by providing compensation. Under the existing law the term is three years and is not restricted to senior staff and other special cases.

The terms of compensation will be agreed between the employer and employee when the employee first joins the company.

Lawyers said the “non-compete” clause helped companies protect their intellectual property and was a step ahead of some other jurisdictions.