About

With a presence across Southeast Asia, Lazada Group (a subsidiary of Alibaba), is a major player in the e-commerce sector in the region, providing a wealth of challenges and opportunities for the individuals in the regional legal team. General counsel Gladys Chun has a track record of success driving legal and compliance across retail, franchising, ecommerce, logistics and payments industries, making her the ideal person for the position. Further adding to the team’s clout are assistant general counsel Jonathan Lau and head of compliance Lee Kiat Seng, both high-level operators who have had an immense impact on the Lazada legal team’s success. Lau is described by Chun as having ‘played a key leadership role in the set-up of Lazada eLogistics’ corporate structure and overall licensing framework’, while Seng possesses ‘unflappable calm in the face of adversity along with the ability to provide a quick and incisive insight into any given issue’. The efforts of the team have borne significant fruit in recent months, as Chun explains. ‘Apart from providing guidance and legal advice to the various stakeholders of the Lazada group’, she explains, ‘the more significant cases and transactions that the team has been involved in have included: the successful spinoff and launch of the logistics business and the driving of the adoption of new business models, leading the brand protection exercise and the spearheading of the management of the Lazada group IP portfolio, the historic US$1bn (followed by an additional US$1bn to increase its share in the company later) acquisition by Alibaba of majority shareholding in Lazada, the biggest SEA acquisition made to-date by Alibaba’. In addition to this, the team was at the forefront of Lazada’s acquisition of RedMart. ‘The team played a crucial role in identifying key areas of concern from a legal, regulatory and integration perspective, and provided detailed guidance throughout the due diligence process with in-depth understanding of legal issues facing e-commerce companies’, Chun explains.