On August 1 it will be four years since U.K. law firm Osborne Clarke launched in Singapore. The longevity of the office bears more significance following the firm's decision to close its Hong Kong office.

But for Chia-Ling Koh, who heads up Osborne Clarke's Singapore office which trades as OC Queen Street, the firm's presence in Singapore is about much more than just maintaining a presence in Asia. Being in the country is a vital part of its focus on technology — particularly financial technology, or fintech — he says.

Every firm from the Magic Circle to smaller shops is trying to build up a tech presence, according to Koh. "We don't have a unique selling point if we just tell people we are tech lawyers. We already bill ourselves as tech lawyers; and we need to up the ante," he says.

Koh has made fintech the focus of OC Queen Street for the next three years and is building a team around that. The firm recently hired two senior lawyers—arbitration specialist Yvette Anthony and corporate lawyer Simon Huang—both as counsel; and Koh said that recruitment efforts in the city-state to develop a full-service practice of digital business lawyers continue.

"All of our lawyers are digital business lawyers, but everyone comes with a different skill set," he explains, noting that his own practice focuses more on fintech advisory and disputes, while Anthony, who previous practiced with Clifford Chance, specializes in arbitration and has good contacts with the Singapore International Arbitration Centre.

Koh is also looking to take on more people with experiences in Southeast Asian markets such as Indonesia and Thailand, and the focus will still be in fintech, an area where the firm's traditional tech clients, the likes of Google are increasingly moving into. "We want to be a bit more challenging to stay ahead of the game," he adds.

"If you compare Singapore and Hong Kong, you will immediately see that Hong Kong doesn't have as much vibrancy of startups and technology"

Closing Hong Kong

Singapore is Osborne Clarke's second outpost in Asia, launched in 2016 by Koh, a former Bird & Bird. In 2015, it entered Asia first with an office in Hong Kong, also with former Bird & Bird partners; in 2017, it launched in Shanghai with yet another former Bird & Bird partner.

But the firm announced in April that it would close its Hong Kong office in June, and instead make Singapore and Shanghai its focus in Asia. In a statement at the time firm international CEO Simon Beswick said the "business and legal markets, however, have changed dramatically in the last nine months."

Beswick made the announcement amidst travel and border restrictions in Hong Kong caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, but he also referred to the political unrest in the city that started in June 2019. Both the pandemic and disruptions caused by street conflicts exacerbated damages in local economy which already showed signs of struggling amidst ongoing U.S.-China trade disputes.

Since then, things became even more contentious in Hong Kong when China put in force a controversial national security law that not only drew strong backlash globally but also triggered a crisis in trade relations between the U.S. and Hong Kong.

The trade restrictions imposed by the U.S. government were geared more towards mainland Chinese entities that import from Hong Kong rather than local businesses. Still, it adds to the challenges already facing Hong Kong in terms of technological innovation, especially compared to regional rival Singapore, where the government has led top-down efforts to encourage technological advancement particularly in professional services industries such as finance and law.

Koh said while the closure of the Hong Kong office was regrettable, it's also part of the firm's plan to realign its strategy in Asia. "We are fintech focused. If you compare Singapore and Hong Kong, you will immediately see that Hong Kong doesn't have as much vibrancy of startups and technology," he says, adding that moving the focus from Hong Kong to Shanghai is also part of that realignment with the firm's tech focus.

In last year's Global Competitiveness Index released by World Economic Forum, Singapore ranked 13th in innovation capability, whereas Hong Kong was placed at 26th. Asia's financial capital, despite a patch work of startups in the private sector, lacks any meaningful policy support or an general ecosystem that promotes technology and innovation.

Others firms also appear to be keen to make similar efforts to Osborne Clarke in choosing Singapore to lead a fintech focused practice. Koh says since he launched OC Queen Street, he's been approached by both U.S. and U.K. firms to build a tech practice in Singapore.

Singapore challenges

But progress in Singapore is far from assured. While the firm has placed its bet on Singapore, the city-state's legal market has seen its fair share of exits of global firms so far this year.

Most recently, the U.K.'s DWF decided to close a three-year-old Singapore office. That followed the conclusion of Eversheds Sutherland's merger with Singaporean firm Harry Elias Partnership earlier this month. In January, Taylor Wessing  also ended a near decade-long affiliation with Singaporean firm RHTLaw.

But Koh is optimistic, saying his firm could potentially benefit from a larger talent pool with other international firms exiting. "People are asking me why while everyone seems to be tightening their purse strings I seem to be recruiting," he comments.

The firm's structure may help explain that. Osborne Clarke operates as a Swiss Verein in Singapore where it shares brand with OC Queen Street while the two firms remain financially independent.

The same structure is used by Dentons and its Singapore firm Dentons Rodyk. The model allows global law firms to access the local market and a local law practice without going through various regulatory processes required. Singapore has a highly regulated legal market where most international law firms, including DWF, operate as foreign legal practices.

As foreign legal practices, firms will have options to access local law via alliance or joint venture, or merge with a local firm, all of which are subject to government approval. Eversheds was one of the few firms that completed a merger in Singapore; but the firm's decision to walk away from the merger indicates that challenges remain in full financial integration in Singapore.

Osborne Clarke's verein structure in Singapore gives its direct access to a full-service law practice without the hassle of navigating through the regulatory process; it also allows the local firm more autonomy to operate.

The firm's Shanghai outpost, which is a Chinese law firm under the name Zhang Yu & Partners, operates also as part of a verein.

Koh believes the verein model suits the firm's purposes. "This model is straightforward. In the last four years everybody has been very supportive in the last four years," he says.

"We are closely knit as it can be," he adds. "We are still going strong and we are here to stay,"

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