How do you approach managing legal aspects during periods of instability or crises, and how does your legal strategy align with the broader business strategy to ensure the organisation’s resilience?

CCB International (Holdings) Limited (CCBI) is the financial and investment arms of China Construction Bank Corporation and is a full-fledged financial services platform. Apart from its home base in the mainland and its headquarters in Hong Kong, CCBI has subsidiaries in world financial centres such as Singapore and London.

Managing legal aspects proactively is crucial for businesses to navigate successfully during periods of instability or crisis. Our legal team is cautious of keeping legal fees under control while maintaining quality legal services in a risk-controlled and legally compliant manner. To do so, we not only to mitigate legal risks but also to step into the shoes of our business partners, becoming their strategic allies in support of the wider objectives of our businesses.

Given the rapid changes in market trends, regulatory focus and technology, we need to stay abreast of the changing regulations and laws to identify potential legal risk and compliance issues and assess how these factors will impact our business operations and legal obligations. During challenging times, the legal team plays an even more vital role within the bank to ensure we continuously and proactively assess the situation to allow business to achieve sustainability and resilience. We keep an open mind, and are adaptive and receptive to changes. New ideas and technologies are our strategies, and all our team members are dedicated to continuously support our organisation in the most cost-effective way.

What strategic priorities are guiding you and your team in 2024?

At the forefront of 2024 are our aspirations to transform and change. Organisations worldwide are subject to changes initiated internally and externally. The legal function plays an important role in enabling organisational transformation as the enabler of commercial outcomes and custodian of legal risk management. In the face of such unnerving changes, 3 strategic priorities are guiding us to meet the urgency for optimisation and transformation.

Firstly, we are focused on meeting our legal budget targets by aiming to reduce litigation costs. we set specific percentage reduction in legal expenses over a set period.

Secondly, we are dedicated to delivering high-quality legal services on strategic transactions and initiatives. By staying closely connected with other parts of the organisation to assess how changes to the business model will affect legal risk and keep the risk management framework under review. This allows our team to demonstrate added value as both strategist and steward, as business partner and trusted advisor able to give both a legal and commercial opinion.

Lastly, we are committed to building and retaining an exceptional legal team composed of extraordinary individuals. Internally, this required re-deploying, re-tasking, and re-skilling our staff, moving away from specialisms to a more fungible legal resource pool of competent and adaptable lawyers and supporting staff. Externally, we are revisiting vendor selection process and panel size, recognising that effective vendor management is essential to ensure that the use of outside counsel is effectively policed.