The Law Society offers sponsorship to young lawyers for participating in international conferences annually. In 2011, a total of seven young lawyers were awarded sponsorship for attending the Commonwealth Law Conference in Hyderabad, India; the LawAsia Conference in Seoul, Korea; the International Bar Association Annual Conference in Dubai, UAE; and the 55th Union Internationale Des Advocats Annual Congress in Miami, USA. All of the young lawyers found their participation in the conferences rewarding and for first-timers, the experience was an eye-opener.

Ms Nadine Lai and Ms Michelle Yip attended the IBA Annual Conference in Dubai from 31 October to 4 November. They share some of the highlights from the conference below.

IBA Conference 2011, Dubai: an eye-opening experience

This is the first time I joined an IBA Annual Conference and both the experience and the advice I received from senior practitioners including President Junius Ho, Vice President Ambrose Lam, Mr Anthony Chow, Mr Stephen Hung, Ms Melissa Pang, Mr Gavin Nesbitt, Mr Alan Linning, Mr Philip Wong, Mr Kenneth Ng and Mr CM Chan was invaluable. The series of programmes were enlightening and eye-opening in their own right.

We attended the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) Courts’ annual ceremony right after we landed in Dubai on Sunday morning. I learned a lot about the development of the DIFC Courts by attending the event. Contrary to Dubai Courts where civil law is used, the DIFC Courts use the common law system, aiming to create a level playing field when compared to the legal systems found in other international financial hubs. The DIFC is allowed to enact its own specific legal and regulatory framework for all civil and commercial matters. The DIFC model, therefore, can provide us with insight for the pros and cons of setting up a unique, if not totally different, legal and regulatory environment within an existing jurisdiction in which the systems of law differ.

The much discussed topical issue in parallel to this is the Qianhai project in Shenzhen, mainland China. Some of our delegates, Vice President Ambrose Lam, former president Mr Anthony Chow and Council Member Mr Stephen Hung, are the members of the Law Society working group for studying the feasibility of the Qianhai project. I was honoured to be an observer and attend many of the arranged DIFC law firm visits, and also meet with Mr Abdulla Al Awar, the CEO of the DIFC Authority. In addition, I had the advantage of tapping into a foreign law firm doing business and practising law in the DIFC. The difficulties law firms face with a newly-established system are yet to be resolved and we can glean from their experience to envisage the potential problems arising from the Qianhai project.

From a practical point of view, I was able to gain a better understanding about the very question that Hong Kong is facing
when local practitioners want to engage with the mainland market to provide legal services. On a soft-skill level, the senior practitioners have shown me how best to conduct meetings with international legal practitioners as the content of the conversation, the manner and the attitude all count.

On 31 October, the Law Society jointly organised a breakfast event with the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (Dubai branch). This was one of the highlights of the trip because as a cohost, the Law Society had the golden opportunity to introduce Hong Kong’s high quality legal services to the UAE’s business and legal community. To serve the business interests of the members of the Law Society, our delegation also successfully pitched Hong Kong law firms as the gateway to the PRC. From the feedback I received both during the breakfast and after I returned to Hong Kong, it seemed that the participants were very impressed by the scope and quality of work provided in Hong Kong. I also witnessed the Law Society’s signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Croatian Bar Association to further advance the potential exchanges and collaboration between the two organisations. I believe the Law Society’s endeavours heighten its members’ legal interests and business opportunities in other jurisdictions.

Throughout the week, there were more than 100 class sessions offered at the Conference that lawyers could join and learn, according to the lawyer’s needs and practice areas. These classes touched upon the current trends in legal fields, all of which were useful to participants regardless of which jurisdiction they were from. As a corporate finance lawyer, I particular enjoyed the sessions discussing capital markets in the UAE because the Middle East is a potential market for Asian practitioners for further exploration.

I also had the opportunity to participate in various social events hosted by the bar associations and law societies in different jurisdictions with our delegates. These social events cater for international networking which was a great experience for a junior lawyer like myself.

I would very much like to refer this sponsorship programme to other young lawyers because I regard the experience to see the world through our senior practitioners’ eyes as extraordinarily valuable because they are exhibiting the fruits of their years of diplomatic and legal experience. They not only ‘talk to talk’, but allow you to ‘walk the walk’ with them and it is inspirational because you feel like you can be just like them and contribute to society and to our legal community.

Nadine Lai
Associate
K&L Gates

Young arbitration institutions in the Middle East and Asia

At the IBA Annual Conference, I took the opportunity to attend a session titled ‘Young arbitration institutions in the Middle East and Asia – perspective from providers and users’ which introduced various arbitration institutions in Asia and the Middle East, and discussed growth in the global market of international commercial arbitration.

Efficient alternative dispute resolution procedures and binding awards can enhance a country’s international legal and business credentials, and can stimulate economic trade. Bahrain, one of the Middle East’s largest commercial and financial centre, introduces the new concept of a ‘Free Arbitration Zone’ (FAZ) to provide surety of arbitration awards to the commercial market.

The Bahrain Chamber of Dispute Resolution (BCDR), a joint initiative between Bahrain’s Ministry of Justice and the New Yorkbased American Arbitration Association (AAA), is one of the growing young arbitration institutions providing conflict management and dispute resolution services to the global community. Its team of arbitrators includes four New York-trained lawyers, two Bahraini lawyers who have been trained in New York, as well as a larger team who has had the additional benefit of ongoing training and professional development via the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators in London. The BCDR aims to train potential arbitrators among Bahraini lawyers, bankers, accountants, civil engineers and professionals from other sectors, in order to help develop sector-specific arbitration expertise.

Any claims for over 500,000 Bahraini dinars (HK$10 million), which involve an international party, will now be directed by law to the BCDR arbitration centre, instead of the courts. It costs about BHD3 million (HK$60 million) per year to run the BCDR.

Bahrain’s new arbitration legislation, Legislative Decree No 30, introduces the concept of statutory arbitration and establishes of the world’s first FAZ. In the FAZ, the BCDR has the jurisdiction to hear a dispute if the parties agree in writing to settle it through this institution. Parties are required to agree that non-Bahraini law will be applied and the award will be enforced outside of Bahrain and in the country whose law has been selected to govern the dispute. As a
consequence, parties involved will be bound by the outcome which is final and binding. The Bahrain courts will not interfere or set aside an arbitral award made in Bahrain, provided the above conditions have been met, thereby removing one of the potential grounds for nonenforcement from occurring. FAZ avoids the problem of the delays and uncertainty of parties having to wait for a number of years to determine whether the national courts will respect arbitral awards issued in their country. This offers jurisdictional and legal certainty in the recognition of arbitral awards, which is an essential component of modern day commercial transactions.

The BCDR was aimed mainly at serving regional needs in the Gulf, Iraq, Yemen and Iran. With the establishment of the statutory FAZ, it is now opened to provide arbitration services to users in the global community.

During the IBA Conference, I also had the opportunity of serving as the aide-de-camp to President Junius Ho and met with representatives from various professional organisations including the German Bar Association, the Japan Federation of Bar Associations and the Bar Council of England and Wales, practitioners and business people from the UAE, as well as witnessing the signing ceremony of the MoU between the Croatian Bar Association and the Law Society.
I found the trip truly rewarding.

Michelle Yip
Trainee Solicitor
Hampton, Winter & Glynn

Members of the Law Society delegation (back row, from left to right): Council member Stephen Hung; Ms Nadine Lai;
Vice President Ambrose Lam; Council Member Ms Melissa Pang; Mr Philip Wong; Mr Alan Linning; Mr Chan Chak Ming; Mr Kenneth Ng; Council Member Mr Gavin Nesbitt; Ms Michelle Yip; and (front row, from left to right): Mr Stephen Wong, Regional Director, Middle East and Africa, Hong Kong Trade Development Counci l ; President Junius Ho; Mr Marijan Hanzekovic, former President of the Croatian Bar Association; and Mr Zoran Vukic, Managing Board Member of the Croatian Bar Association, at the conclusion of the MoU signing ceremony.

Two other young lawyers, Ms Vivian Wong and Ms Cammie Leung attended the 55th UIA Congress in Miami, USA from 31 October to 4 November. Ms Wong shares some of the highlights of the event below.

55th UIA Congress: a unique learning experience

Conferences, such as the UIA, promote the learning of law by finding common ground and common issues between various jurisdictions. They bring together practitioners, academics and legislators who have dealt with a particular issue to prompt members of the legal community in other jurisdictions to think about how they would tackle the same issues in their own countries.

As the main purpose of the UIA congress is to gather lawyers from around the world, many of the varied themes and topics presented were issues and areas of law which are not normally discussed in Hong Kong. The sessions I attended, included: ‘Trying Suspected Terrorists: Just Another Criminal Case?’; the special session on the ‘Evolution of the Justice System in Saudi Arabia’; ‘Life Sciences and the Biotechnology Economy: How Far Should We Go?’; and ‘Global Legal Issues Surrounding Professional Sports’, which were particularly enlightening. Through these special sessions, I was able to learn about areas of the law from leading experts in their respective fields. The topics were debated by practitioners from various jurisdictions and their different views were interesting because they brought varying perspectives to the same issue. In particular, it is interesting to note that what we may take as trite law in Hong Kong is only an area of law in its infancy in other countries.

Another session I attended was the International Bar Leaders Senate which focused on the theme: Lawyers and Conflicts of Interest. It was striking how endemic the problem was in quite a number of jurisdictions. For example, one of the issues many jurisdictions face, and have not yet found a solution to, is how sophisticated clients use conflict of interests to their strategic advantage. These ‘savvy’ clients place several leading law firms together, which specialise in the particular area of law of the client’s dispute, and make a query or disclose information which is not available in the public domain to such firms, thus effectively eliminating all of these firms from acting for the opposition. Although many of the lawyers on the panel did not have a solution as to how to tackle this issue faced by many, one suggestion was made by our Immediate Past President Huen Wong was basically providing an undertaking or have the clients declare that they would only disclose information already in the public domain; the initial consultation would not constitute legal advice nor would it affect that particular law firm from acting for the other side in the same case.

The other main purpose of the conference was to provide a venue to network and build contacts. The social events, the cocktails, the daily luncheons at Loews Miami Beach Hotel, and the Gala Dinner were definitely highlights of the conference. It was an amazing opportunity to not only meet delegates from all over the world but also the chance to spend one week in a conference setting with them, and getting to know them both professionally and personally. The delegates I was able to meet included those from Algeria, Australia, Cameroon, Canada, Chili, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Croatia, France, Germany, India, Iraq, Italy, Japan, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States.

It was also exciting to share with other lawyers the Hong Kong legal framework. One of the ways we have helped to promote the legal profession of Hong Kong was by explaining to some of the delegates the intricacies of what happened during the 1997 handover and how Hong Kong has continued to thrive under the ‘one country two systems’ regime
(for the time being). Further, as Asia is increasingly becoming an economic hub, it was necessary to explain why Hong Kong has been considered the freest economy in the world and why this is primarily due to our legal structure.

It was satisfying to know that by talking about Hong Kong, the work of the Law Society of Hong Kong and our legal profession, many of the delegates became interested in getting to know Hong Kong, our laws and recent developments, and could consider Hong Kong as a possible jurisdiction in cross-border transactions.

As mentioned above, one of the ways young members of the Law Society can contribute to the Law Society is by promoting the work of the Law Society and the legal profession to those delegates who are less familiar with Hong Kong as a jurisdiction. Young members of the Law Society can also contribute by assisting with any research regarding any speeches a Council Member may have to give or assist a Council Member with research if he/she has been asked to be a panelist for a particular topic. In conferences where the Law Society holds its own luncheon or event, I also encourage young members to help as a coordinator or as a host to delegates and guests.

The Law Society delegation at the UIA Congress (from left to right): Ms Cammie Leung; Vice President Dieter Yih; Immediate Past President Huen Wong; Mrs Wong; Ms Vivian Wong.

Ms Vivian Wong (right) with Mr Leo Andreis (left), President of the Croatian Bar Association.

Vivian Wong
Trainee Solicitor
Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom