About

The ABN AMRO legal team in Hong Kong consists of four lawyers and one paralegal as part of a larger Asia Pacific team of 12 lawyers covering offices in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore, Tokyo and Sydney. Grant McIntyre, the head of legal for Hong Kong and senior counsel for Asia, has been at the bank since 2015 – first in Dubai and then in Hong Kong. As ABN AMRO in Hong Kong is both a corporate bank as well as a clearing bank, the legal team advises on a broad range of matters including clearing and settlement, syndicated lending, leveraged finance, projects, acquisitions, structures, secured lending and general corporate lending. The small but tightly-knit team has a breadth and depth of international experience that allows it to punch well above its weight. Each lawyer in the team has focused specialisations for specific business lines while maintaining versatility to take on cross-sector roles through various transactional opportunities. Hilda Yim and Nadhapreuk Jirasarunya advise the bank’s corporate and institutional banking department on a broad range of financings, with Yim being a specialist in trade and commodity finance transactions and Jirasarunya having expertise on financings for diamonds and jewellery clients. Heinz Mak is an experienced clearing lawyer for ABN AMRO’s clearing business in Hong Kong. Together the team is seen as a true partner to ABN AMRO’s business teams and work hand in hand with the bank’s stakeholders to achieve cutting edge commercial solutions. Additionally, ABN AMRO is a global pioneer of the finance industry’s shift towards sustainability and the bank is leading the charge in guiding clients to transition to sustainable business practices. This long term vision is fully supported by the legal team whose goal includes the development of sustainable product offerings and forming strategic partnerships with the business to advance the bank’s push towards sustainability. According to McIntyre, the biggest challenges in the next twelve months will be the regulatory changes – both the expected and the unexpected. ‘In this global bank, we consistently have to deal with regulatory issues from not just Hong Kong but also the European Union and the US. Ensuring that the team remains knowledgeable about all of these regulatory matters to properly advise the business is a key concern for our legal team’, he comments. His strategy for retaining legal talent is ‘to treat colleagues as professionals capable of running their part in the legal team’s role’, adding, ‘giving each team member ownership over their work is, in my opinion, a key component to a satisfying career’. McIntyre also shared the following about the legal department: ‘Where you have a small team like we do at ABN AMRO in Hong Kong, each team member needs to be able to tackle a number of very different legal issues. We cannot be overly specialised as we may be working on a major structured transaction one day but the next have to advise on employment issues, regulatory matters or data protection questions. I consider our team at ABN AMRO in Hong Kong particularly strong in their diversified knowledge and ability to handle many different legal issues’, McIntyre states.