Lifang & Partners

About Lifang & Partners: Founded in 2002, Lifang & Partners is a full-service law firm with offices in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Wuhan, Haikou and South Korea, Seoul. We provide a full range of award-winning legal services covering intellectual property, antitrust and competition law, securities and capital markets, dispute resolution, and more.

Lifang & Partners is a well-rounded and diverse team that provides one-stop, high value-added services. Many of our partners and lawyers attended top law schools in China and abroad. Some have worked in the central government, major regulatory commissions, the courts, or overseas in well-known international law firms or multinational companies. Through their exceptional educational backgrounds and rich practical experiences, they have enjoyed successful careers in their chosen fields of expertise. Chambers & Partners, The Legal 500, Asian Legal Business, Managing Intellectual Property and China Business Law Journal have recommended several of Lifang & Partners’ lawyers on multiple occasions.

Believing in service, loyalty, diligence, efficiency, and professional excellence, we provide well-rounded transactional and dispute resolution services that combine our in-depth understanding of China’s legal, social and economic development with rich practical experience and a solid understanding of the challenges facing our clients.

Areas of practice
Intellectual property: Lifang & Partners is one of the few go-to firms for high-profile intellectual property issues in China. Many of our qualified lawyers have also had a technical or scientific education. Additionally, some of them had previously worked in the Chinese Central Government and the courts before they embarked upon their careers in private practice. Such a blend of diverse academic achievements and rich career experiences help us to quickly understand our clients’ complex legal, business, and public policy challenges, allowing us to offer practical legal solutions. We encourage our lawyers to combine their academic knowledge with their practical experience to provide efficient, high-quality legal services.

Lifang & Partner’s intellectual property litigation team profoundly understands technology, possesses strong industry knowledge, and has a proven track record of success. As our clients’ businesses have traditionally focused on creating and marketing products rich in intellectual property, enforcing IP rights and defending against claims of infringement or misappropriation have always been critical components of our firm’s practice. Our litigation team aggressively and successfully pursues our clients’ interests in complex disputes over patents, trademarks, copyright, trade secrets, unfair competition, and other matters.

Antitrust: Our antitrust team was established in 2007. Lifang & Partners is a pioneer of antitrust litigation, having represented in multiple landmark antitrust litigations. For instance, we represented China Netcom (now China Unicom) in the abuse of market dominance lawsuit, which was China’s first antitrust lawsuit following the enactment of the Anti-monopoly Law of China (“AML”). We represented Qihoo in Qihoo 360 v Tencent, the first antitrust case heard by the Supreme People’s Court. We represented Tetra Pak in an abuse of market dominance case, which is the first high-profile follow-on action in China following antitrust authority’s decision.

Moreover, we have acted in multiple antitrust litigations involving standard essential patents for our rich experience in both IP litigation and antitrust litigation, including a series of high-profile litigations between Huawei and Samsung. We participated in almost all the major SEP litigations in China. With our capability to handle both patent and FRAND issues, we can offer our clients optimized litigation strategies to maximize their interest.

Since 2012, our lawyers have substantially participated in several investigations by National Development and Reform Commission (“NDRC”), and now State Administration for Market Regulation (“SAMR”), as counsel to the antitrust authority, respondent, or complainant in different cases. We gained an in-depth understanding of the internal procedures and working style of the antitrust authorities. We participated in a number of landmark investigations such as the LCD panels cartel case, the first antitrust investigation in China, and the Qualcomm abuse of market dominance case, which results in the highest fine ever imposed in China.

Lifang & Partners is one of China’s first firms to be involved in merger control filings. Since 2007, our lawyers have been involved in many cases and have acquired extensive experience in merger control filings. We have handled more than one hundred merger control filings to date.

Compliance: In response to the increasingly growing demand of compliance and regulatory legal services, Lifang reorganized its previous antitrust and anti-unfair competition task force to form the antitrust and compliance team in October 2017 to offer a full range, end-to-end and specialized services to our clients.

Our antitrust and compliance team is dedicated to assisting and/or representing the clients in all their efforts/programs required to ensure compliance including ethical and compliance training, compliance risk profiling and assessment, compliance policy reviewing and drafting; incident handling, response to governmental investigations; and defense in relevant legal proceedings. In terms of the subject matters, we have been advising our clients on a variety of legal areas such as cybersecurity, data privacy, antitrust, anti-unfair competition, anti-corruption, healthcare product clearance, cryptographic product regulation and export control.

Dispute resolution: The resolution of commercial disputes through Chinese arbitration or litigation systems is becoming an increasingly attractive option for both foreign and domestic parties.

Our lawyers have a great depth of experience representing foreign and domestic clients in informal settlement negotiations and formal dispute proceedings. In relation to formal disputes proceedings, such experience includes administrative review proceedings, commercial arbitration, mediation, intellectual property hearings, international arbitration, and civil proceedings in the People’s Courts.

Shortly after engaging us, clients receive an in-depth analysis of the merits of their case. Thereafter, we ensure that clients are provided with regular updates on the progress of their case and an analysis of the final decision.

We have a proven record of providing quality services and delivering solid results to clients in a wide range of cases.

Capital markets and securities: The Lifang & Partners capital markets and securities team has a wealth of experience and has served as legal adviser to many issuers and underwriters at home and abroad. It has participated in the listings of several companies on the Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, and New York stock exchanges. It has substantial experience working with preferred stocks, convertible bonds, asset securitization and other emerging businesses in China’s capital markets.

Lifang & Partners’ clients include Chinese and foreign state-owned companies, private enterprises, world-renowned multinational companies, and investment banks. We work with a broad range of industries including finance, energy, construction, transportation, manufacturing, agriculture, consulting, security, TMT, and other fields.

Venture capital investment and private equity funds: Lifang & Partners provides comprehensive legal services for private fund managers and private funds, including fund model design, internal control system construction, change of fund manager reporting, management of legal risks from operations, prevention and control of contract risks, and special legal risks prevention. We help our clients to fulfil their regulatory compliance obligations to the Fund Association and comprehensively clean up and prevent all kinds of legal risks that may occur.

Investments and mergers: Lifang & Partners’ securities and capital markets team has completed well-known and complex investment and M&A transactions on behalf of many publicly listed companies, state-owned enterprises, and private businesses. Other work handled by the team includes listed company reorganizations and mergers, cross-border acquisitions, overseas investment and M&A projects. During these transactions, our team has provided integrated services to clients using their in-depth understanding of the Chinese legal and regulatory environment, and the integration of their expertise in tax, finance, and business matters. We have a deep understanding of client needs and can always provide comprehensive solutions.

Banking and finance: With our lawyers’ professional expertise, sound experience, and high standards, Lifang & Partners’ legal services to the financial sector is well recognized, which include banking, trusts, insurance, funds and financial technology.

Lifang & Partners has provided services for insurance companies, state-owned commercial banks, foreign banks, city commercial banks, village banks, trust companies, and other financial institutions. Our services have involved international financing, syndicated loans, project financing, and financial litigation. Financial institutions, trust loans, bond underwriters and others retain us to provide daily legal advisory services. We offer the full range of legal services required by financial institutions related to the issuance, risk management, disposal and acquisition of distressed assets and financial derivatives.

Insurance and reinsurance: The Lifang & Partners insurance team comprises several experienced legal professionals. It has been focusing on providing legal services to the insurance industry for many years. Our legal services cover all fields of the insurance industry.

Construction and real estate: Construction and real estate have played an important role in the development of China’s economy. Lifang & Partners as a legal services provider takes an active role in the construction and real estate industries.

Our construction and real estate practice combines our knowledge of contract, corporate and property law with industry knowledge. Lifang & Partners has a group of excellent lawyers which form its professional real estate team. Based on profound legal knowledge and industry expertise, our real estate team provides legal services for banks, real estate funds, developers, contractors, project investors and the government. We can handle all aspects of a transaction including land development, project acquisition, engineering construction, real estate project financing, and property management.

Lifang & Partners’ real estate team works closely with our dispute resolution team on construction and real estate matters, enabling us to minimize the potential for disputes or to deal with them expeditiously, should they arise. We assist our clients to mitigate their risks and to achieve their commercial objectives.

Labour law: Human resource management and labour dispute resolutions are a significant component of business operation. Lifang & Partners understands the importance of labour law matters to clients and attaches great attention to this area of practice. Our labour law practitioners possess rich experiences, aim to provide high-quality legal services and maintain close relationships with relevant government administrations, judicial organs, experts and scholars.

Lifang & Partners is capable of providing clients with a comprehensive labour law services, including conducting compliance audits, suggesting improvements for labour relationships, establishing labour management systems, providing key staff with labour law training, managing employee placements in special commercial transactions, handling the employment of foreigners, and resolving labour disputes.