Fangda Partners

One of the most trusted names in the Chinese arbitration market

Founded in 1993, Fangda Partners was one of the first law firms established under mainland China’s contemporary legal system.

The firm has been advising foreign investors in China on disputes since the early days, but the international arbitration practice came to the fore after the opening of the Beijing office in 2004 and the addition of US-trained practitioners with deeper international experience. The combination of common law (Hong Kong and English) and PRC law arbitration and litigation capability is still a relatively rare offering in the Greater China market.

In addition to handling CIETAC work, Fangda Partners frequently teams up with leading foreign firms for ad hoc and institutional arbitrations under the major rules, and provides expertise on Chinese law in overseas proceedings. It is one of the few Chinese firms to have independently and successfully represented Chinese and foreign clients in international arbitrations in both Hong Kong and Singapore.

Prominent members of the practice are Daniel Huang, who has handled dozens of foreign investment cases, and Ming Kang, whose career as an arbitrator has seen him adjudicate more than 1,000 foreign-related Chinese arbitration and international commercial arbitration cases.

Other names to know are US-trained lawyer Helen Shi and Olga Boltenko, who leads the investment disputes practice with former Freshfields partner Peter Yuen.

Network

The firm has offices in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and, most recently, Guangzhou. Since 2012, it has offered litigation and international arbitration capabilities in Hong Kong through an association with Peter Yuen & Associates – which was home to bilingual lawyers qualified in Hong Kong, English and Singaporean law.

In 2018, Fangda merged with Peter Yuen & Associates to develop the same unified international arbitration brand across Greater China and the international market.

Who uses it?

Clients include China National Offshore Oil Company, Citibank, Deloitte, General Electric, HSBC, IDG Group, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley and Texas Pacific Group.

The firm was instructed by US energy company ConocoPhillips to settle a US$230 million environmental claim brought by the Chinese government arising from an oil spill in the Yellow Sea – by far the largest such claim in China to date.

Track record

Fangda helped a European real estate investment fund win a US$31 million award in 2015 after a six-year dispute over a transfer of property. The same year, the firm helped a client win 90 per cent of its claim in a leasing dispute at the Shanghai International Arbitration Center, and achieved a favourable settlement in a dispute over a US$300 million real estate development in Beijing that did not get the approval of Chinese security services.

In 2013, the firm acted for a large Chinese state-owned construction company in a London-seated case against the road authority of an African state. The parties settled their dispute, which was worth over US$100 million. It also says it gained a landslide win, plus costs, for a Spanish client in a Hong Kong-seated UNCITRAL arbitration with two Chinese entities.

Looking further back, the firm famously advised leading Chinese beverage company Wahaha in a CIETAC arbitration with French dairy company Danone. It also acted for a Chinese business celebrity in a US$100 million Hong Kong-seated ICC arbitration against an international mobile service network – achieving a settlement in favour of the client.

Recent events

China retained the firm as one of its 15-member panel tasked with advising the state on investment treaty matters; the firm had already been included on a previous version of the panel unveiled in 2018.

The firm is advising China Development Bank in a US$73 million claim against a Russian borrower before CIETAC; it is also pursuing court proceedings against the counterparty’s Chinese related entities, which served as counter-guarantors.

For the offshore receivers of a US biotech company, Fangda acted in a US$100 million Beijing Arbitration Commission dispute over loan and guarantee agreements, securing an award that significantly reduced its liability to a Chinese creditor.

The firm promoted Yang Liu in Beijing and Sophia Feng in Shanghai to the partnership.

Counsel Matthew Townsend left after six years at Fangda in Hong Kong to join the Reed Smith as a partner.

Client comment

Mandar Jayawant of Mongolia Opportunities Fund, who used Fangda in an arbitration relating to a dispute in Mongolia, says the firm provided “excellent honest advice as to costs”.