About

The legal department of real estate company, Hang Lung Group is made up of 37 lawyers and 22 non-lawyers, divided into a Hong Kong legal team, company secretarial teams and the China legal team where they are further subdivided into ten teams, each based in the 10 business units of the company’s operations in eight cities in China. The legal team are fully responsible for providing support to all insurance matters as well as for the operations in Hong Kong and China. ‘There was much communication and best practice sharing among team members, regardless of location or functional expertise’ explains general counsel and company secretary Margaret Yan. She adds that, ‘We hold regular meetings to keep each other abreast of work related issues and new legal developments. We also partner well with our business, providing them practical legal solutions, and help them with policy preparation and interpretation, as well as regular training sessions on relevant topics’. With the rapid and successful development of the Hang Lung’s business, there has been a corresponding expansion of the legal team as well, in order to cope with an increase in legal demands. In order to adapt to this, the legal team restructured the company secretarial teams so that specific resources are appropriately supporting each of the two listed companies and always looking at ‘new and innovative ways to provide practical and real time legal support to our business operations, leveraging the use of technology where appropriate’, says Yan. In addition, the legal team has been instrumental in a number of landmark transactions, including the approval of the Green Panda Bond in China, the first green bond ever approved in the construction and real estate sector. They were also responsible for providing advice in a winning bid to acquire a major piece of land in Hangzhou, with a final price of RMB10.7bn, a major transaction and a new record in Hangzhou. Another notable feat for the legal team is its work on the re-launch of flagship mall, Plaza 66, in Shanghai at the end of 2017, a major renovation project, which increased revenues and substantially enhanced the quality of the property. When discussing the legal team’s ethos, Yan says, ‘we do it right. Not only are we the legal stewards, we are also the gatekeepers and guardians to provide advice to our business operations so we are all doing the right thing, all the time’.