Partner Perspectives: Thomas Hornby

Senior Legal Counsel Thomas Hornby explains how BNG Legal is adapting to clients’ changing needs in Cambodia. Watch the video above or read the transcript below.

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Could you please provide an introduction about yourself, and a brief overview of the firm?

OK. Well, in terms of the firm, I think we’ve been a company now for the best part of 20 years. So we’re quite a well established law firm in Cambodia. In terms of my own career, I started with one of the leading commercial law firms outside of London, albeit it was by then recognised as a City of London practice.

With different investment opportunities coming into Cambodia, how do you view the current market?  
I think the market at the moment is in a bit of a flux. No one really knows for certain what’s going on and when I walk around town I hear different things from different people, and it has to be said from different people with interests in the business. There’s still potential for Cambodia, and the Asian market generally is still a good place, and people are still thinking if they have money where they can put it. So there, there are real opportunities here.

In terms of the legal market and what I hear and what I know, I’d say that it’s fair to say that if you walk around the restaurants, talk to some of the names in town when they haven’t got their marketing hat on, I think we’ll we’ll hear them say things like, well, it hasn’t been as good as it was. There has in fact been a bit of a slowdown, it has to be said, in terms of some of the corporate and banking work, and a little bit of a slowdown owing to some laws and regulations in China. But what we’ve seen as a firm over the past few months, I’d say is an uptick in the investment from China and also from Japan, interestingly enough. And I think that is partially a reflection of our China desk and the approach that we have to transparent pricing, which is something that Chinese clients are interested in, and differing service levels because not all clients want the same thing. And certainly I don’t believe that you offer necessarily one service to a Western client and a different service to a Chinese client. You should be offering the best service you can.
But they may have a different differing approach to the way they like to see services performed. And we’ve reflected that by offering different service levels within different sectors.

Have any new laws or legislation come into play that are likely to impact this going forward? 

Well, it’s not really a new law actually, because it’s been there since 2019. I’m thinking of a Trust law. Well, what I’d say is that there’s always been a gap in Cambodia because the law itself, the Constitution of Cambodia, prohibits investment in real estate. And there’s always been a gap there in terms of what can investors going into Cambodia, whether or not they’re invested in real estate, what can they do if they if they are interested in real estate. And there’s been a gap in this sort of law and the understanding of the law and that has been plugged by this trust law. There’s still some teething issues there, but we know now, which we didn’t know before, that foreigners may acquire legally ownership of real estate. Other than that, before it was limited to condominium real estate. Foreigners, by which I mean non-Cambodian citizens and entities, all using the new Trust are all registering ownership of their real estate using registered trust structures.

As I say, there are some teething issues, and I’m not a tax expert, but there are some issues around taxation. But it’s a really welcome development I think across the across the board. And the long may that continue.


BNG Legal has consistently been highly ranked by The Legal 500; but what do you see as the main points that differentiate your firm from your competitors?

It’s always an interesting question, because there’s a reason that we’ve been consistently highly ranked. It’s because we’re getting the basics right across our different practice areas – corporate banking, general practice, intellectual property and tax. So we’ll continue to press our services in that sense in the traditional way.

But what marks us out? Well, I think what should mark us out and I hope increasingly does mark us out is our approach to particular groups of customers who want something specific. I touched before on our China desk. So we have developed a new product line where we offer clients coming in – and we were thinking of Chinese clients but they could be anyone actually – they don’t necessarily want chapter and verse. They want you to answer a specific question, so we’ve managed the risk through our terms and conditions. We give them what they want for the high value work.
Perhaps I can add something because of my background in in England, but we continue to push forward doing what we do well, and we try to develop on the opportunities created by things like AI.


Which practices do you see growing in the next 12 months? What are the drivers behind that?

Well, I think we’ve long been recognised for having a preeminent intellectual property practice, and I think that strength will continue as the market expectation and demand for expertise in that area grows, and I expect it’s growing exponentially. We’re seeing more and more instructions coming in. So what I summarise, what I often say to clients is, look, the law here is not perfect. There’s gaps. There are some quite big gaps in comparison with the more advanced jurisdiction.

But when you’re starting your investment journey in Cambodia, it’s important to get the basics right. And that means having the right professionals.

Going back to IP, registering your intellectual property with the Ministry of Commerce, will help you if that’s important part of your business and you subsequently come across a competitor or someone else who’s trying to steal it. So I think that’s important. We’ll see more more of that.

What’s the main change you’ve made in the firm that will benefit clients? 
Well, I think it would be wrong of me coming into the firm and say that I’ve changed things, but I don’t say that. What I think I have brought is a shift in emphasis.
Our local law advisors are really first class, great advisers. But in terms of training, I think sometimes in England you get a focus on putting the advice in its commercial context. And I’m personally trying to bring our lawyers to an understanding that the clients aren’t as interested in the black letter law as they are in answering their problems. So in other words, I’m trying to give the firm a steering direction of giving advice in its commercial context. That’s one tweak I have made to service delivery.


Is technology changing the way you interact with your clients and the services you can provide them?

That’s a good question for the legal service sector internationally, and I include London, that is having to respond to these changes in technology. And I think those firms that see it as a threat, we will increasingly see them increasing, decreasing prominence, shall we say. So we’re not scared by the technology. We want to work with it, but we we’re led by what our clients want.

So I have a personal belief that as technology takes over our lives, one of the things that I like about living in Cambodia is that I can go to a travel agent when I go on holiday and they do the work for you. And as increasingly technology takes over, personal service really counts. So whether clients want to hold a meeting in person, whether they want to do a Teams meeting, whether they want a letter and they don’t want an e-mail, we’ll send them a letter and we’ll meet them in person. But if we’re doing volume work with clients and they’re happy using e-mail then I’ll do that.

Now there’s a separate question, which is actually within your question. We’ll stand behind it and that’s that’s AI, because I think AI actually is going to completely transform the business. I think there will be fewer lawyers around. The lawyers that survive on the high quality work will be the lawyers who really can add value in their drafting. Because without AI, as I see it, where what you see is you don’t start on what will be at the moment draft one. You start on draft 3 or draft 4 when you’ve got all the input. So what we’re going to see is that the high value work done by the international law firms is going to require an even higher level of precision and even more tailored approach.

We’re ready for that and we’re trying to move on to that. We don’t just rely on Anglo-Saxon templates. We use templates that we tailor to fit the local context and the Civil Code. That’s how we’re developing it.

Can you give us a practical example of how you have helped a client to add value to their business?

Well, it’s nice that you asked that question because we’ve just been talking about AI and technology and all that stuff. But sometimes when a client walks through the door of any practice, whether it’s a small law firm in a town in the UK or whether they were walking into the front door of our law firm have a specific problem. And I think that one thing which will remain a constant on in legal service delivery is personal service.

Two things I can just turn to where we help the clients and I’m not sure that other law firms could have given this service. There was a marriage between a Chinese gentleman from Hong Kong who subsequently became quite wealthy and his ex-wife, who we helped with looking at some historic marriage documents and really helped her in her her claims. And that took a lot of time. It took, you know, sitting down. We had translators. There was a big hand holding exercise there. You’re not going to do that by swapping emails on the Internet. You’re not going to flick that around by twiddling on your phone. So that is personal service where I think we really can add value.

Another thing I was involved with relatively recently was helping a UK law firm. It had some negligence, potentially potential claim that related to actions or omissions that have happened in Cambodia. What they were looking at was (although the the contract was given by, I can’t say too much, but was governed by one of the UK jurisdictions) if they’re framing a claim in England, for example, you know the question of what is reasonable care under English law conflicting with Cambodia, where you know the action or omission occurred in Cambodia. So the question is what are the local laws, what are the standards that you would expect? And I’ve sort of flicked it back and said, well, here’s the local laws. It wasn’t much. What can you expect? Well, insurance – they could have taken out insurance. So you have that usual discussion about the interplay between negligence and insurance when in Cambodian context we can add value because we know about it.

Are clients looking for stability and strategic direction from their law firms – where do you see the firm in three years’ time?

Well, to go back to the start of my career, and things emphasised to me then sometimes come back and I think, whether you’re sitting in London, whether you’re sitting here in Moscow, whether you’re sitting in France, Paris, wherever you are, it’s always the same: can you give the client what he wants? Can you deliver the service in a way that the client wants? Now that there are so many different media for delivering services, I think law firms have got to listen more. And lawyers are bad listeners. Law firms and legal consultants, because of course I’m a consultant Cambodian lawyer, I’ve got to listen more carefully about how clients want their service delivery.

So where a client would like a a spreadsheet with solutions, let’s give them a spreadsheet with solutions. Or a client wants to be, you know, held by their hand, have a cup of tea, talk to the secretary… It’s a nice friendly environment. Let’s do that. It’s bringing them in. Let’s chat, let’s sit down and let’s get the memo out fast as we can.

And where you have a client and they’re not actually wanting to spend too much, sit down with them. Let’s say, OK, what you really need is protection. You tell them what types of protection there are, but give them what they want. You know, give them a bullet point e-mail. And the sooner the rest of the world talks in bullet points – lawyers are talking in these long winded sentences – the sooner that ends the better.