Chinese online shopping giant Alibaba Group has named Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer corporate partner Timothy Steinert as its new general counsel.

Steinert, who specialises in overseas stock offerings of Chinese companies and cross-border M&A, is set to leave Freshfields at the end of the month. In his new role he will report to Alibaba chief executive Jack Ma.

Prior to joining Freshfields' Hong Kong office in 1999, Steinert had stints at Davis Polk & Wardwell in Hong Kong and New York and legacy firm Coudert Brothers in New York and Beijing.

"We are delighted to welcome someone of Tim's calibre and experience," Ma said in a statement. "I am confident that he will play an important role as Alibaba Group continues to build a global e-commerce company serving customers around the world."

Alibaba is the largest e-commerce business in China, with 200 million registered users across 200 countries. The group has annual revenues of $68m (£33.48m) and comprises five companies including Yahoo! China and Taobao.com, Asia's largest e-commerce website.

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