Cross-Border Investment

Co-Chairs

	Ulf Ohrling Mannheimer Swartling Advokatbyrå AB 33/F Jardine House 1 Connaught Place Central, Hong Kong Tel. 852 2526 4868 Fax 852 2526 6568 E-Mail: uoh@msa.se
	Yong-Jae Chang Lee & Ko Marine Center Main Bldg. 18/F 118, 2-ka, Namdaemun-ro, Chung-ku Seoul, Korea Tel. 82-2-772-4394/4000 Fax 82-2-772-4001/4002 E-Mail: yjc@leeko.com

Vice-Chairs

Immediate Past Chairmen/Advisors

 The Cross-Border Investment Committee (“CBIC”) is the largest, most broadly based and fastest growing of all IPBA committees. The CBIC provides a networking forum for lawyers engaged in regional cross-border investment to exchange information and experiences in order to advance their knowledge of the laws, practices and procedures affecting investment activities in the Asia-Pacific region, as well as to develop closer professional links.

The CBIC focuses on the myriad of investment and corporate laws and policies that are fundamental to the development of international commerce and which affect Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) transactions, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, and the raising of capital across the Asia-Pacific region. FDI frequently results in the creation of dynamic, long-term lawyer/client relationships in the matrix of changing economic and legal circumstances. Professional advisors must deal with issues prospectively and with flexibility armed with correct contemporaneous legal information.

The CBIC deals with issues of interest to legal practitioners who face new challenges as the businesses of their locally based clients shift to a global focus. The CBIC’s annual conference programs enjoy a high level of attendance by both in-house and corporate counsel and features presentations by senior counsel as well as experts from outside the legal profession. Such presentations facilitate a better understanding of the perspectives and expectations of in-house counsel, external counsel and the clients whom they advise.

The CBIC often cooperates with other IPBA committees in conducting annual conferences and other programs, and shares with those committees coverage of such issues as mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures and a range of issues that influence all types of business organisations.

CBIC leadership always welcomes any suggestions from members of topics they desire to have discussed at forthcoming annual conferences or other events.

UPCOMING CONFERENCES

• Annual Conference – Singapore, 2–5 May 2010. Planning for the Singapore Conference is well underway. The Singapore Conference promises to be the biggest yet for the IPBA and, consistent with the theme of “Climate Change”, will feature keynote speaker former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore.  The CBIC's list of preliminary Conference programs will be announced in June 2009, followed by periodic updates leading up to the Conference.
   
• Regional/Local Conferences – The CBIC leadership and the IPBA welcome from any member proposals for regional or local conferences, with the aims of both increasing the number of events throughout the year and of organising events nearer to hand for interested members.

MANILA  ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2009

The CBIC sponsored or co-sponsored three programs at the recent Manila annual conference which was attended by some 450 delegates:

• Trade Law Risk in International Mergers & Acquisitions: "Do" Diligence to Close the Transaction and Avoid Client Liability (presented in cooperation with the International Trade Committee)
  Cross-border investment activity creates new opportunities and challenges for lawyers in the Asia-Pacific region. Corporate lawyers must manage increasingly complex national obligations under trade laws, and trade lawyers are required to expand and adapt their advice to new settings. Due diligence must extract the information needed to assess trade risk in deals, and lawyers practising internationally must be familiar with these issues. Using case scenarios, the panel reviewed the due-diligence process, considered issues of trade risk, and explored various approaches to managing trade risk in M&A transactions.
   
• Dealing with Corruption and Illegal Matters Affecting Cross-Border Investment (presented in cooperation with the International Trade Committee)
  Companies doing business globally must consider their obligations to comply with anti-corruption laws both in foreign markets and in their “home” jurisdictions. Reputational risks and the loss of investor confidence are at stake. The boundaries between the use of relationships and corruption may vary depending on a region or country. The limits between lobbying and corruption practices are often unclear. How is corruption defined and measured in various regions? What are accepted best practices? What are the rights and duties of lawyers advising clients involved in cross-border activities under FCPA or similar laws? This session aided participants to determine the parameters of legal behavior that raise bribery or corruption concerns when coupled with actions. This session provided a practical solution-based approach to the issues to help identify actions that cross the line from permissible lobbying to become corrupt behavior. A series of practical “do’s and don’ts” were proposed for developing compliance policies so as to avoid corruption risks when doing business internationally.
   
• Privatization of Enterprises in Asia
  A number of countries in the Asia-Pacific region, including the People’s Republic of China, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the Republic of the Philippines, have vigorously pursued policies of privatization. This program explored, on a comparative basis, the status of privatization in the Asia-Pacific region in the context of recent experience and under current economic conditions.
  

LOS ANGELES ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2008

The CBIC was the most active committee at the Los Angeles annual conference (attended by some 700 delegates), sponsoring or co-sponsoring five programs:

• The Global Investment Race for Energy and Resources (presented in cooperation with the Energy & Natural Resources Committee)
• Go West, Good Investor, Go West…to the West Coast
• Investment Arbitration under Bilateral Investment Treaties: Lessons Learned From the Latin American Experience (presented in cooperation with the International Trade and Dispute Resolution & Arbitration Committees)
• M&A Execution in China: What Every Deal Team Needs to Know
• M&A Due Diligence in Asia

OTHER RECENT ANNUAL CONFERENCES

• BEIJING - 2007: The CBIC presented a half-day program in cooperation with the Banking, Finance and Securities Committee on Public and Private M&A in the Asia-Pacific Region and China, with speakers from China, Japan, Malaysia, and Canada.
   
• SYDNEY - 2006: The CBIC presented programs dealing with various aspects of cross-border investment in the era of Bilateral and Multilateral Investment Treaties and Free Trade Agreements.