About

Headed by Wanda Tung, managing director and general counsel for Asia, the legal team of Nomura International (Hong Kong) consists of 37 lawyers, six paralegals and four support staff and is praised by a nominator as ‘a balanced and well-rounded team that is geared up to handle the bulk of the bank’s legal, regulatory and compliance business in-house’. Tung has over 27 years of experience and has been general counsel for the region since 2010. As of May 2019, she oversees the compliance department and is now also head of Asia legal and compliance. The legal team is organised by both geographical coverage and practice groups. As a regional legal team, it supports the firm’s activities in Australia, New Zealand, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, India, Korea, Singapore and Southeast Asia. With Hong Kong and Singapore being Nomura’s regional hubs in Asia outside of Japan, the two offices accommodate most of the legal team, with 27 and 13 staff respectively. Each of the other Asia offices, excluding Japan, has at least one lawyer onshore. The practice groups align to different business divisions within Nomura, such as global markets division (GM), investment banking division (IBD), and wealth management division (WMD). Many of the senior lawyers wear many hats and are responsible for supporting the business as well as general location coverage. For non-hub offices such as India and Korea, the onshore lawyers act as generalists providing advisory and transactional support across all business divisions and corporate matters as well as drawing support from product expert lawyers in Hong Kong and Singapore. Key Individuals of the legal team include Jonathan Wise, acting as managing director, head of legal for Singapore and Southeast Asia, and co-head of GM legal; David Cummins who is managing director, head of legal for Australia and co-head of GM legal; and Carli Yung, serving as managing director, head of legal for Hong Kong and head of corporate legal. The highly experienced and committed legal team acts as a trusted advisor and partner to the business while also serving as a risk manager, protecting the business against legal and regulatory risks. The legal team is highly involved in various CSR and diversity initiatives. ‘Within Nomura, the Asia legal team members are leaders within all three in-house regional employee networks, despite the relatively small size of the team compared to other departments. Such leadership and contributions are well recognised internally and demonstrate our significant influence within the firm beyond just legal work’, says Tung.