Fangda Partners

A market leader in China

Founded in 1993, Fangda Partners was one of the first law firms established under mainland China’s contemporary legal system.

The firm has been advising foreign investors in China on disputes since the early days, but the international arbitration practice came to the fore after the opening of the Beijing office in 2004 and the addition of US-trained practitioners with deeper international experience. In 2007, the firm added former China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission (CIETAC) deputy secretary general Ming Kang. The combination of common law (Hong Kong and English) and PRC law arbitration and litigation capability is still a relatively rare offering in the Greater China market.

Besides handling CIETAC work, Fangda Partners frequently teams up with leading foreign firms for ad hoc and institutional arbitrations under the major rules, and provides expertise on Chinese law in overseas proceedings. It is one of the few Chinese firms to have independently and successfully represented Chinese and foreign clients in international arbitrations in both Hong Kong and Singapore.

Prominent members of the practice are Daniel Huang, who has handled dozens of foreign investment cases; and Ming Kang, whose career as an arbitrator has seen him adjudicate more than 1,000 foreign-related Chinese arbitration and international commercial arbitration cases.

US-trained lawyer Helen Shi, a CIETAC arbitration specialist, is also an appointed ICC Court member for China and a former member of the proceedings committee of the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre (HKIAC). She was appointed as co-chair to the Asia-Pacific arbitration group of the International Bar Association for 2020–2021.

Olga Boltenko, who joined in Hong Kong in 2018, is an investment and trade lawyer with experience in investment disputes at major institutions.

Almost all the arbitration partners in Fangda are on the arbitrator rosters of at least one arbitral institution.

In 2018, Fangda merged with Peter Yuen & Associates, a firm operating in Hong Kong, to develop the same unified international arbitration brand across Greater China and the international market.

Network

The firm has offices in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and, most recently, Guangzhou. Since 2012, it has offered litigation and international arbitration capabilities in Hong Kong through an association with Peter Yuen & Associates – headed by a former Freshfields partner and including bilingual lawyers qualified in Hong Kong, English and Singaporean law.

Who uses it?

Clients include Citibank, China National Offshore Oil Company, Deloitte, GE, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, HSBC, Texas Pacific Group and IDG Group.

The firm was instructed by US energy company ConocoPhillips to settle a US$230 million environmental claim brought by the Chinese government arising from an oil spill in the Yellow Sea – by far the largest such claim in China to date.

It acted as Chinese counsel to one of the Big Four audit firms in a US Securities and Exchange Commission investigation concerning the audit of a US-listed Chinese company.

Track record

Fangda helped a European real estate investment fund win a US$31 million award in 2015 after a six-year dispute over a transfer of property. The same year, the firm helped a client win 90 per cent of its claim in a leasing dispute at the Shanghai International Arbitration Centre; and achieved a favourable settlement in a dispute over a US$300 million real estate development in Beijing that did not get the approval of Chinese security services.

In 2013, the firm acted for a large Chinese state-owned construction company in a London-seated case against the road authority of an African state. The parties settled their dispute, which was worth over US$100 million. It also says it gained a landslide win, plus costs, for a Spanish client in a Hong Kong-seated UNCITRAL arbitration with two Chinese entities.

Looking further back, the firm famously advised leading Chinese beverage company Wahaha in a CIETAC arbitration with French dairy company Danone. It also acted for a Chinese business celebrity in a US$100 million Hong Kong-seated ICC arbitration against an international mobile service network – achieving a settlement in favour of the client.

Recent events

Fangda successfully represented an American company in enforcing a multimillion-dollar monetary judgment handed down by a US court. The mainland court hearing the case granted relief on the basis of reciprocity – reportedly only the second time a Chinese court has recognised a US court’s commercial judgment.

Keen Vision Capital, a British Virgin Islands-based global investment group, instructed the firm in HKIAC proceedings relating to the enforcement of a guarantee. The firm prevailed in the arbitration and enforced the award in the Hong Kong courts.

It continues to act for Apple in its claim against Chinese-based Iwncomm under a patent licence agreement. The dispute relates to the royalty rate payable by Apple for use of the Chinese company’s patents to secure regulatory approval for the iPhone in China. Apple is also using the firm in concurrent proceedings before the Chinese courts.

Helen Shi advised Korea-based Daesung Industrial Gases in a case against a Chinese affiliate of US-based Praxair (now part of Irish-domiciled chemicals group Linde). In 2020 a Shanghai court upheld the validity of a disputes clause providing for SIAC arbitration in Shanghai – a decision that confirms foreign arbitral institutions’ ability to conduct arbitrations on the mainland.

The firm also acted for Hong Kong-based Primeline Energy Holdings in a SIAC-administered arbitration against the state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) and an affiliate.

In the Shanghai office, Lingqi Wang and Allen Fu were promoted to partner.

Client comment

Mandar Jayawant of Mongolia Fund, who used Fangda in an arbitration relating to a dispute in Mongolia, says the firm provided “excellent honest advice as to costs”. He commends Matthew Townsend for his efforts in defending his company’s interests.