Asia Business Law Journal – November/December 2018

Firsts last

New ideas to ring out 2018

Asia Business Law Journal publishes its last issue for 2018 with a number of firsts. This issue contains our inaugural awards for the best law firms, and we have chosen the Philippines to be our first country in the region to list our winners with the Philippines Law Firms of the Year for 2018.

The Philippines legal market is a competitive one, and while there are big-name law firms that bring in business because of their reputation, there are also a number of up-and-coming firms that have earned their spot purely on the merit of their counsel. Congratulations in particular to: Law Firm of the Year SyCip Salazar Hernandez & Gatmaitan (SyCipLaw); Best New Law Firm Insights Philippines Legal Advisors; and Best Overall Law Firms AccraLaw, Picazo Buyco Tan Fider and Santos, Romulo Mabanta Buenaventura Sayoc & De Los Angeles, and SyCipLaw.

Congratulations also to the four winners in each of 20 practice areas who received our awards. These winners were selected via a process similar to that applied to our sister publications, China Business Law Journal and India Business Law Journal, which run the awards annually in their jurisdictions. Awards were selected based on votes, references, and qualitative information received from in-house counsel and other legal professionals in the Philippines and around the world.

A voting form was posted on our website, and thousands of in-house counsel, lawyers at international law firms, and other Philippines-focused professionals were invited to vote. At the same time, Philippine law firms were asked to make submissions in support of their candidacy for awards. These submissions, combined with research by Asia Business Law Journal’s editorial team, played a supporting role in the judging process.

In 2019, the awards will continue in other territories around the region, so keep reading our pages and our website for details about nomination and voting in your jurisdiction.

For our cover story, we look to Thailand, which barring any further delay undergoes a dramatic change in February with its first democratic election since a 2014 military coup. The nation is hungry for foreign investment dollars from the West that have waned since the coup, and these elections, however controversial due to claims leveled at the regime of intrusion and bias, may give the nation a much-needed boost to pursue ambitious infrastructure plans, among other things.

Swift amendments to old laws in the months leading up to the elections have drawn criticism for poorly planned and structured regulation, but in areas such as technology, including Fintech and blockchain, regulation has been sorely needed. In this era of colossal change for Thailand, legal experts weigh in with their opinions on how the election and its aftermath will play out.

In another first for the journal, we have begun a series called Legal Frontiers, and in this issue feature the Cayman Islands and the Philippines, each with a series of articles from each jurisdiction’s most active law firms on complex and demanding emerging areas of law, to give guidance to in-house counsel and investors.

We also, for the first time, explore billing rates across the region in an Intelligence Report headlined Ringing up Legal Spend. This article reveals that corporate counsel are increasingly keeping law firms on their toes with demands for better quality and value as they also claw back much of the work once outsourced to firms. We ask general counsel and law firms for their take on competition and strategies for legal spending and budgeting in the region.

Be sure to check out our A-List this issue for the top 100 Korean lawyers. Comments submitted to Asia Business Law Journal by the clients of these lawyers suggest that they are seeking lawyers naturally with extensive knowledge of the law, but also those that take the time to understand their company’s situation and who are trustworthy and culturally sensitive. Koreans in general place great value on establishing and nurturing business relationships, and this is reflected in the words and choices of the legal clients who told us about their relationships with their law firms of choice.

For a change of pace, an expert briefing from the CEO of the International Stock Exchange Group, headquartered in Guernsey, provides a revealing look at the rise of green finance and its own newly launched green market segment called TISE GREEN.

Finally, all the staff at Asia Business Law Journal would like to sincerely wish all our readers, contributors, and friends a very happy and successful 2019! Keep reading and stay informed!

Best wishes,
John Church
Editor, Asia Business Law Journal
Editor-in-chief, Vantage Asia