About

In place at BMW since 2005, originally as an in-house lawyer focused on capital markets, Dr Andreas Liepe’s career with the car manufacturing superpower took an interesting route early on. He began to specialise in the company’s Asian distribution and manufacturing facilities from 2007 onwards, moving to Beijing in 2011 heading BMW’s legal department in China, before returning to Germany in 2014 as assistant general counsel heading a legal department and advising on all legal matters relating to production, sales, marketing, data privacy and digital business worldwide. He continues to advise the company on its Chinese operations and, after having approximately 13 years understanding the market there, now possesses profound knowledge and experience of Chinese regulations – especially its foreign investment regime – and has advised on Chinese joint ventures and foreign direct investments on many occasions. In 2018, he worked on the first ever transaction in which a foreign automotive company was allowed to increase its share in a Chinese automotive joint venture above 50%. This landmark transaction was reported in the press worldwide. Going forward, Dr Liepe believes that in-house counsel will have to continue to raise their game in order to provide the best possible support to their companies. ‘I see an increased demand for high class in-house legal advice’, he explains. ‘The regulatory environment changes rapidly. Also, trade wars, digitalisation and other disrupting factors require companies to adapt quickly. As a consequence, the volume and the complexity of legal advice increases’.