About

Galaxy Entertainment Group is one of the world’s leading resorts, hospitality and gaming companies. It is listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the Hang Seng Index. Director of the legal department Raymond Kwok oversees a team of eight lawyers and four support staff across two offices in Hong Kong and Macau. The legal team handles all legal aspects of an extremely complex business that spreads across Galaxy’s various hospitality and entertainment properties in Macau as well as the construction materials division of the Group. Their work includes commercial transactions, project development contracting, licensing and regulatory issues, finance requirements, human resources and employment, consultancy engagements and IP rights. Over the past 12 months, the team advised the Group on a range of legal and regulatory developments, such as the smoking ban implemented by the Macau government, personal data protection regime imposed by the GDPR, and various on-going gaming and AML related matters. Over the next few years, ‘our team will be deeply involved in all aspects of Galaxy’s doubling footprint in Macau to more than two million square meters, making our world-class flagship property Galaxy Macau one of the world’s largest and most diverse integrated destinations and a regional entertainment and a MICE (meetings, incentives, conferencing and exhibitions) powerhouse’, says Kwok. Apart from Galaxy’s recent investments in SBM in Monaco and Wynn Resorts in the US, the Group is also actively exploring a range of international opportunities in other places, including Japan, the Philippines and Hengqin, China. The extent of their legal work has been significantly magnified as the team dedicates itself to finding and implementing multi-jurisdictional solutions aimed at optimising corporate and operational efficiency and risk mitigation. In the next 12 months, Galaxy will be actively participating in bidding for one or more gaming and integrated resort licenses in Japan and the legal team will be advising on all aspects of the bids including regulatory, financing, and operational matters. Talking about the strategy of hiring and retaining legal talent in the team, Kwok explains: ‘we generally recruit senior associates from top-tier Hong Kong and Macau law firms who have strong technical and language skills. We retain our lawyers by providing them with a broad mix of challenging work and competitive executive incentive packages. We have experienced a low rate of turnover as a result’.