外國律所將受益於中國開放進程

Last year Baker & McKenzie obtained a coveted “001” licence from Chinese regulators. The designation confirmed that it would be the first foreign law firm allowed to establish a “joint operation” with a Chinese counterpart, FenXun Partners, in the Shanghai free-trade zone.

去年，貝克•麥堅時國際律師事務所(Baker & Mckenzie)從中國監管部門手中得到了其夢寐以求的“001號”執照。該執照確認了該律所將成爲首家獲准在上海自貿區設立聯營辦公室的外國律師事務所。與之聯營的中國律所是奮迅律師事務所(FenXun Partners)。

Overseas law firms have long been frustrated by the restrictions they encounter in China. When they recruit talented Chinese lawyers, for example, their hires must give up their local law licences — and thus their ability to represent their new employers’ clients in Chinese courtrooms. In many industries, most notably banking, it is far easier for Chinese companies and service providers to go overseas than it is for their foreign rivals to enter China.

海外律師事務所長期對他們在中國受到的監管限制感到沮喪。例如，在他們聘請有才華的中國律師時，接受聘請的律師必須放棄本土律師執照——這使他們不能在中國法庭上代表新僱主的客戶。在很多行業（銀行業最爲明顯），中國企業和服務提供商前往海外要比外國競爭者進入中國容易得多。

Foreign law firms are revelling in the continuing Chinese mergers & acquisitions bonanza, advising local companies on overseas purchases that exceeded $100bn last year and then surpassed that amount in the first quarter of this year alone. But their ability to service multinationals in the world’s second-largest economy is far more constrained.

外國律師事務所正陶醉於中國持續的併購熱潮，爲那些收購海外資產的中國企業提供諮詢。去年中國企業海外收購規模超過1000億美元，而今年僅在第一季度內便超過了這一數字。但是外國律所在世界第二大經濟體爲跨國企業提供服務時受到的約束大得多。

However, Baker & McKenzie’s unique arrangement in the Shanghai FTZ demonstrates that there are some interesting liberalisation experiments that could in time open China’s professional service sectors to meaningful overseas participation. This is particularly important in an era when international law firms, like the industrial multinationals they advise, have become increasingly reliant on global supply chains of their own. They support deals in the US, for example, with the help of low-cost back-office operations in Ireland and the Philippines.

然而，貝克•麥堅時在上海自貿區的獨特安排表明，目前有一些有意思的自由化實驗，有望在一段時間後開放中國專業服務領域，讓海外提供商實質性地參與。在如今國際律師事務所（就像他們提供諮詢服務的工業跨國企業一樣）日益依賴於自己的全球供應鏈的時代，這一點格外重要。例如，他們利用設在愛爾蘭和菲律賓的低成本後臺業務，爲美國的交易提供支持。

Baker & McKenzie’s collaboration with FenXun is carefully labelled a joint operation, as opposed to a joint venture, because the two partners remain “structurally separate”, says Milton Cheng, managing partner for the firm’s China and Hong Kong operations. Despite this, a Baker & McKenzie lawyer assigned to the operation can in effect advise the firm’s multinational clients on matters of local law anywhere in China. In this way, local hires who gave up their China licences to join the Chicago-based firm can “revive” them. “If there’s one thing you learn from being in China, it’s patience,” Mr Cheng says. “We see this FTZ development as a very positive step . . . If it all works it will help the liberalisation process.”

貝克•麥堅時中國內地和香港業務管理合夥人鄭維明(Milton Cheng)表示，貝克•麥堅時與奮迅的合作被謹慎地貼上了聯營、而非合資的標籤，因爲兩家合作律所在結構上仍然是獨立的。儘管如此，貝克•麥堅時被指派投入聯營的的律師，實際上可爲該律所的跨國客戶提供有關中國本土法律問題的建議。這樣一來，爲了加入這家總部位於芝加哥的律所而放棄了中國律師執照的本土律師就可以“復活”這種資格了。“如果你能在中國學到什麼的話，那就是耐心，”鄭維明稱，“我們把自貿區的發展視爲非常積極的一步……如果一切順利，它將有助於自由化進程。”

There have been some headaches along the way. While the Baker & McKenzie-FenXun joint operation was formally established in early 2015, it took almost a year for the new entity to get clearance to open its own bank account, making it difficult to do something as simple as issue invoices.

在此過程中有一些令人頭痛的問題。儘管貝克•麥堅時-奮迅聯營辦公室在2015年初就已正式成立，但這個新實體幾乎花了一年時間才獲准開立自己的銀行賬戶，此前連開具發票這樣簡單的事情都很困難。

Among developing economies, China has not been alone in frustrating some of the world’s best legal minds with Byzantine market entry barriers. The Indian government is known to be hostile towards foreign professional service providers, having scuppered what would have been a landmark global services agreement in 2014. Malaysian rules require that Baker & McKenzie can only call itself Baker & McKenzie if it actually employs a lawyer named Baker and a lawyer named McKenzie in its local operation. With a dearth of qualified Malaysian lawyers having either of these Anglo-Scottish surnames, Baker & McKenzie’s Kuala Lumpur office instead bears a “Wong & Partners” shingle.

在發展中經濟體中，中國並非唯一設置繁複的市場準入壁壘，讓世界上最優秀的一些法律人才碰壁的國家。印度政府對外國專業服務提供商不友好是出了名的，2014年印度的反對使一項具有里程碑意義的全球服務協定化爲泡影。馬來西亞的規則要求，貝克•麥堅時律師事務所除非確實在該國有一名叫貝克的律師和一名叫麥堅時的律師執業，否則就不能用這個公司名。該所找不到這種盎格魯-蘇格蘭姓氏的合格馬來西亞律師，結果只能掛上“Wong & Partners”的招牌。

A key benefit of the establishment of Baker & McKenzie’s Shanghai joint operation is that the firm’s clients in China will be able to tap into global supply chains that today affect law firms as much as they do manufacturers. “For the last eight years we’ve been investing a lot in understanding pricing and getting much more conscious about how to keep contracts within reasonable margins,” says Eduardo Leite, Baker & McKenzie chairman. Mr Leite notes that his firm deals with price-conscious “procurement officers” who keep as close an eye on legal bills as they do invoices from component suppliers.

設立貝克•麥堅時上海聯營辦公室的一個關鍵好處是，該律所在中國的客戶能夠利用其全球供應鏈。如今供應鏈對律所的影響不亞於對製造商的影響。“過去8年來，我們在理解定價、大力增強把合同保持在合理利潤範圍內的意識投入了很多，”貝克•麥堅時董事長愛德華多•萊特(Eduardo Leite)說。他指出，該律所要和對價格敏感的“採購經理”打交道，這些人密切關注法律服務賬單，就像對待零部件供應商的發票一樣。

It is now only a matter of time before Baker & McKenzie’s back-office support centres in Belfast and Manila begin to support legal casework in remote parts of China. That will start to entwine the world’s second-largest economy into global service supply chains as deeply as the manufacturing ones it revolutionised a quarter of a century ago.

現在，貝克•麥堅時在貝爾法斯特和馬尼拉的後臺支持中心開始支持中國偏遠地區的案子只是時間問題。那將開始把世界第二大經濟體深深地嵌入全球服務供應鏈，就像四分之一個世紀以前中國融入全球製造供應鏈，並帶來一場革命那樣。