Investment Management

We have more than 20 years’ experience of advising traditional fund management and alternative asset management companies on legal and compliance issues for all their complex asset management requirements. Since the most recent round of the opening-up of China’s financial sector in 2018, we have successfully assisted many offshore financial/asset management companies to set up groundbreaking first batch of foreign-controlled financial institutions and to obtain onshore business permits. During the process, we, together with regulators and clients, explored the implementation of applicable statutory provisions, so that regulatory rules and internal control requirements are implemented reasonably, pragmatically and effectively.

We have highly developed relationships with regulators and understand how they think and work.

We are able to provide insight to our clients in the asset management sector as they develop their business, including advising on groundbreaking products, in the China market.

We offer clients in-depth knowledge and practical experience of governance structures, operational models, business practice and transactions and products within the asset management sector.

In addition, we offer clients dispute resolution capability. We have advised clients in many challenging asset management disputes and have successfully represented them in cases before tribunals. Our compliance team has great knowledge of data compliance, network security and privacy protection, all areas that are critical in the context of asset management.

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Notable Matters

Fangda is renowned for our asset management expertise in China. Some of the high-profile cases on which we have advised include:

Investment Management

Assisting Hua An Funds to set up China’s first open-ended publicly offered fund, Hua An Chuangxin Securities Investment Fund
Assisting in setting up the first foreign-controlled securities firms
Assisting in setting up the first wholly foreign-owned futures company
Assisting a foreign shareholder to acquire a majority stake in a public fund management company through the public listing process, the first such case in China
Assisting a foreign shareholder to become single largest shareholder in a public fund management company, the first base in China;
Assisting a subsidiary of a foreign bank to obtain the license of fund distribution business, a first in China
Assisting the Ant Finance and Vanguard Group to establish a joint venture company to provide fund investment consulting business services for individual Chinese investors. This was one of the first fund investment consultancy licenses issued by the China Securities Regulatory Commission (“CSRC”)
Assisting in the set-up of a foreign-invested non-performance assets disposal company, one of the first licensed foreign-invested non-performing loan (“NPL”) enterprises
Assisting a foreign-invested asset management company on its strategic partnership cooperation with a wealth management subsidiary of a commercial bank, the first time this had been done in China
Assisting in setting up the first Fintech services subsidiary established by a multinational bank for its wealth management business
Advising the first foreign-invested company approved by the People’s Bank of China (“PBC”) to establish an onshore bank cards RMB clearing network
Assisting offshore private fund management companies (including Bridgewater) with their filing with the Asset Management Association of China (“AMAC”).
These filings were among the first batch of foreign private fund management licenses (PFMs) filed with AMAC
Assisting the first JV wealth management company in issuing its first wealth management product
Assisting clients in one of the first cases of Qualified Domestic Limited Partner (“QDLP”) products distributed by a foreign-invested securities firm
Assisting clients in the first batch of the offshore financing of cross-border NPL acquisition (relating to NPL portfolio and single asset)
Assisting from the PRC perspective, a top US asset manager to acquire a minority interest in the general partner (“GP”) of a leading Asia private equity manager and a well-known British asset management group in its merger with an international insurance group, both of which are representative transactions in the area of funds M&As
Assisting a wholly foreign-owned private fund management company with the issuance of multi-asset fund products
Representing a globally renowned hedge fund in administrative investigation and hearings conducted by the CSRC
Dealing with a number of major and complex cases involving financial derivatives in domestic court proceedings, and dealing with a number of domestic and international arbitrations related to fund investments
Providing crisis management for renowned securities companies in relation to asset management products
Providing advice to a securities firm acting as custodian to private investment funds, participated in negotiations and represented the securities firm in litigations, with respect to actions taken by investors seeking to protect their benefits after default of private investment fund products, loss of contact of private investment fund managers and failure in honoring of products
Advising a broker with respect to a cross-border regulatory investigation arising from clients’ trading through Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect
Assisted a mutual fund manager in reviewing the business operation of its fund subsidiary and improving the risk control of the fund subsidiary