Event Report

The Legal 500’s first Asia-Pacific Corporate Governance Summit invited 150 of the region’s top general counsel to examine key topics through the lens of how they advise the key decision-makers at their organisations. Securing the vast international expertise of Baker McKenzie to assist us in putting together the schedule, we were extremely pleased with the day’s events. As well as the pre-planned discussions, conversations which followed during the networking parts of the day were incisive and open, which acted as a ringing endorsement of the excellent work done by those who moderated the discussions.

When creating the agenda, we decided the perfect way to begin would be to chat to some excellent GCs about their opinions on some of the key issues raised over the rest of the agenda. We were delighted that Lily Tsen of Amcor and Jasmine Karimi of FMC agreed to be Joe Boswell of The Legal 500’s sparring partner for what was an excellent session. Utilising the extensive expertise of the two in-house lawyers, the session successfully touched on significant issues to be covered later, in particular the importance of incorporating governance seamlessly into social and environmental goals.

Richard Lustig and Min-tze Lean of Baker McKenzie took charge of our next session which took a look into the boardroom at directors’ liabilities and shareholder activism. Jasreen Singh of dwp, Jacelyn Chan of foodpanda and Jeffery Tan of Jardine Cycle & Carriage provided excellent counterpoints to the issues raised by Lustig, with a conversation on personal liability for non-compliance generating extremely rewarding takeaways.

The next panel was on that boasted a wealth of experience to bring to bear on a subject that always carries deep resonance, that of ESG expectations. Alongside Andrew Zaw, Christine Cuthbert and Napatorn Dasananjali Termglinchan of Baker McKenzie, three highly knowledgeable GCs were on hand to give their views: Matt Kasdin of Maxeon Solar Technologies, Gladys Chun of Lazada Group and Felix Tse of Pavilion Energy.

A change of pace came with our next panel as we turned our attention to the M&A space. On stage, Mini vandePol, Xiaohui Ting, Daniel Pardede and Shih Hui Lee of Baker McKenzie, and Cathy Chan of CBRE Investment Management and Alex Liam of Sustainable Metal Cloud looked into both old and new due diligence requirements in the M&A space. The discussion was tailor-made to give audience members the best chance of getting their next deal over the line and consolidated.

Reputation safeguarding was the order of the day for the next panel session, which ended up delving into a range of scenarios for protecting the name of a company whether an issue has developed or is developing under the surface. As well as practical examples of crisis management situations that our panel had been involved with, a good deal of time was spent discussing the social media dimension, and the right way to mitigate risks related to this. Georgie Farrant and Henry Chen from Baker McKenzie, Su Hui Tan of Michelin, Tim Jackson of Vale and Andrew Ong of Kone took part in this panel, with Henry Chen providing a particularly interesting set of recommendations for companies operating in Mainland China.

Our final session focused on the extremely popular topic of AI, one which always stimulates an interesting conversation and new insights. This was no exception, with panellists Andrew Liew of The Coca-Cola Company’s Bottling Investment Group for Singapore, Malaysia & Brunei, and Ashish Chugh, Eddie Chuah, Ken Chia and Manh Hung Tran of Baker McKenzie fielding a number of insightful and poignant questions from our audience.

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