Asia

With offices in Hong Kong and Singapore, Akin caters to the global needs of the Asia market through a fusion of astute legal acumen and political insights.

Our multilingual team, including native Chinese speakers, is qualified in multiple jurisdictions such as Hong Kong, England and Wales, the United States and Australia. We boast extensive experience in advising clients with strategic investments and business endeavors in the region.

For decades, we have guided clients through the entire life cycle of their investments across Asia and globally—from fundraising and formation, optimizing investment structures, to corporate governance, financing, financial restructuring, and devising and executing exit strategies across various sectors.

Our dynamic transactional energy & infrastructure practice excels in cross-border project development, financing and mergers & acquisitions (M&A), particularly in the natural gas sector, energy transition (including hydrogen, carbon capture & storage (CCS)/carbon capture, utilization & storage (CCUS)), and renewables.

Akin is distinguished for its shareholder activism practice in Asia and globally, where our history of successfully representing activist clients speaks for itself. We devise innovative solutions that bolster clients’ long-term investment objectives, navigating the shifting legal, social and political landscape, along with evolving business practices and accounting intricacies in the wider region. These situations often entail complex regulatory challenges and disputes, for which our litigation & international arbitration lawyers have substantial firsthand experience.

In addition, we maintain a robust international trade practice, advising on investment and trading risks arising from political tensions both locally and internationally, with particular attention to the ramifications of U.S.-China trade tensions, and U.S. and EU sanctions.

Our team in Asia seamlessly collaborates with the firm’s global network, including the Middle East, the United Kingdom, Europe and the U.S., establishing ourselves as the go-to trusted advisor for comprehensive legal needs in the Asia-Pacific region and globally.

Representative Matters

• Represented Elliott Management, a leading global investment firm specializing in investor activism, in a series of multibillion-dollar highly publicized shareholder activism campaigns, and private equity and arbitrage investments across Europe and the Asia-Pacific, including interests in Toshiba Corporation, SoftBank Group, Tokyo-listed Dia Nippon Printing Co. Ltd, and Innsworth.
• Advised the trustees of the creditors’ trust for Virgin Australia, the second-largest airline in Australia, in the complex restructuring of more than AU$6 billion in debt, culminating in the sale to Bain Capital, a U.S. private equity group.
• Represented Sequoia Capital, a prominent venture capital firm, in the sale of its stake in Ganji.com, a major online local services marketplace in China, for a total consideration of $1.6 billion.
• Represented J-Power, a Japanese electric utility, in a pioneering AU$496-million project to produce hydrogen from Australia’s extensive brown coal reserves in Victoria's Latrobe Valley.
• Represented Global Chemical Company in securing legal counsel regarding market access and non-tariff barriers in China, Malaysia, Singapore and India, as well as export and import trade controls in China and Thailand.
• Represented DRB-HICOM, a listed Malaysian conglomerate, in securing a significant victory for its subsidiary, Perusahaan Otomobil Nasional SDN (PONSB), over disputes amounting to over RMB 860 million (approximately $130 million) in the Supreme People’s Court of the People’s Republic of China.