WilmerHale's Beijing office was established in 2004. It offers a unique combination of services bringing together premier in-country, transactional and intellectual property experience with outstanding policy, regulatory and government relations capabilities. This combination allows the China team to offer clients an exceptional depth and scope of service, and the firm's hallmark of sophisticated problem solving and strategies at the intersection of business, government and regulation.
Lester Ross serves as Partner-in-Charge of the Beijing office. He leads a group of Chinese-speaking lawyers and staff who are widely recognized as comprising one of the strongest legal teams based in China for corporate, financial services and intellectual property work, including M&A, private equity, venture capital, foreign direct investment, financial services, telecommunications and technology. Mr. Ross is former General Counsel of the American Chamber of Commerce—People's Republic of China.
The China team provides critical policy, regulatory and government relations advice that complements our clients' commercial objectives.
We have represented clients across a broad range of industries in all aspects of their business dealings across China, including structuring, negotiating and documenting business transactions, as well as involvement in precedent-setting foreign investment transactions. Among the China practice's recent triumphs on behalf of its clients are the execution of copyright cooperation agreements for the publication of local editions of several of the world's leading magazines; assistance in securing approvals for several of the largest and most novel foreign investments in China; favorable outcomes for Chinese producers in anti-dumping investigations in the United States; and successful litigations and investigations of intellectual property infringements.
With the depth and breadth of our US and European offices, we have also advised Chinese entities on their outbound commercial and trade relations, particularly in obtaining regulatory approvals, structuring transactions and defending against trade actions.
Our Beijing team was established by Ambassador Charlene Barshefsky, former United States Trade Representative, and Robert Novick, former USTR General Counsel. Members of the team structured, negotiated and concluded a range of landmark agreements with China, most notably China's intellectual property rights agreements, market access agreements, and the comprehensive US-China bilateral agreement that paved the way for China's WTO membership, covering all goods, services and agriculture in the Chinese economy.