Overview
SHANGHAI (May 19, 2016) – MWE China Law Offices, together with its strategic ally, McDermott Will and Emery, is expanding its industry-leading MWE China Data Center to provide a fuller range of sophisticated legal and forensic technology services.
The groundbreaking Data Center – the first full law firm discovery platform in China – was opened in 2014 as a new extension into data and technology services, continuing MWE China’s innovations in the market. The unique Data Center is designed, operated and staffed by locally licensed lawyers with a focus on finding and delivering legal value inside of large data sets and helping clients navigate China’s challenging data privacy and security laws.
The MWE China Data Center has recently expanded through new e-discovery and forensic hardware and software tools to meet the emerging data needs of multinational companies in China. Local data protection laws are evolving rapidly and have critical implications for the way companies undertake business deals and commercial matters as well as financial audits, corporate due diligence, litigation, and especially sensitive investigations and government enforcement matters that demand rapid reviews of large amounts of electronically stored information.
As a primary focus, the Data Center is expanding its core team of locally qualified reviewer attorneys to meet the continuously growing market demand for document review and evidence analysis by Chinese lawyers. In addition to the growth of the core review team, McDermott and MWE China have also hired two highly experienced e-discovery and forensic professionals to further strengthen the leadership and provide deeper technical expertise and experience. Mark Schroeder, who recently joined from his role as Associate Director of Deloitte China, has been named Foreign Consultant. Eric Dai, previously Manager of Legal and Compliance at Alcatel-Lucent as well as Senior Consultant for Forensic Services at PricewaterhouseCoopers, has been named Compliance Advisor.
Mr. Schroeder, who has worked in China since 2002, has deep compliance, policy and FCPA/anti-corruption investigations experience utilizing digital forensics and e-discovery. He combines his legal and commercial background with more than twenty years of consulting for multinational corporations and Chinese organizations focusing on compliance and business issues. He earned his law degree, Certified Fraud Examiner certification and Hong Kong mediation license while working in Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai.
Mr. Dai’s practice has focused mainly on regulatory compliance, FCPA/anti-corruption investigations, fraud detection, forensic accounting, e-discovery and white collar crime. At Alcatel-Lucent, he was responsible for identifying potential areas of compliance vulnerabilities and evaluating risks in order to develop and implement corrective action plans, as well as drafting and updating local compliance policies to meet global requirements. At PwC, he provided forensic services to clients – including digital evidence collections, forensic accounting, fraud investigation and fraud prevention – in a wide range of industries.
In addition to these significant new hires, the MWE China Data Center is also continuing the expansion of its technology through new hardware and software tools. Most significantly, the Data Center has added full data collections capabilities, which now enables the team to complete the entire lifecycle of the projects, from the initial collection through the processing, review, analysis, and onto the final production or report. In addition to this major advancement, the core technology is also being upgraded and scaled to accommodate larger cases, new visualization and investigative tools are being adopted to more quickly and accurately conduct trend analysis and find key red flags, and new forensic software is now available for deep metadata analysis, deleted file recovery, and improved fraud detection.
These important new additions and improvements will allow the MWE China Data Center to continue leading the market in data-related legal services. The Firm’s successes in this area over the past few years have included:
- Guiding a leading technology company through a massive cross-border e-discovery matter that required review, analysis, and production for a US litigation case involving more than one million documents that were collected from more than one hundred custodians in China.
- Finding, organizing, and analyzing critical digital evidence for a global manufacturer ensnared in one of China’s largest recent government investigations, and proving rapid fact-finding and defense reviews for the subsequent criminal trial.
- Conducting metadata and forensic analysis to evaluate whistleblower claims against the top local management of a large multinational European company, resulting in crucial findings that led to significant terminations for fraud and embezzlement.
- Devising and implementing a unique and flexible evidence production protocol to help facilitate the cross-border provision of key electronic documents in one of the largest recent FCPA cases.
- Investigating multiple claims of FCPA violations by local management and efficiently guiding a leading healthcare company through major subpoenas by the US government for documents and data in China, while still complying with local data privacy and data export restrictions.
- Advising dozens of clients for critical data privacy, data security, and data transfer concerns for their growing business needs in China.
“Our recent enhancements to the MWE China Data Center are designed to shepherd clients through commercial and corporate work in the PRC, a legal environment unlike any other,” said Jeffrey E. Stone, co-chair of McDermott Will & Emery. “Whether that means more efficient due diligence for M&A deals, more accurate analysis for white-collar and government investigations enforcement actions, or more sophisticated privacy and data protection measures, MWE China can do it all in a way that no other law firm operating in China can. We are enormously proud of what we’ve been able to build here.”
Unlike other service providers in China that are not law firms, the unique MWE China Data Center is staffed and managed by PRC-qualified attorneys. As a law firm, MWE China has a heightened duty of confidentiality and specific legal ethics rules that require it to protect its clients’ confidential and sensitive information at a level that is over and above its competitors. MWE China Data Center’s role as a trusted legal advisor allows it to seamlessly integrate knowledge and analysis produced during document review into any subsequent legal work led by the broader MWE China team.
“Virtually every business, from startups to multinationals, has come to depend on electronic storage to achieve greater levels of efficiency, information management, profitability and competitive advantage,” said John Z.L. Huang, Managing Partner of MWE China Law Offices in Shanghai. “We are dedicated to working with our clients to establish appropriate and secure asset management, protection and disposal strategies that can be easily implemented at every point in the information chain. We also help clients prevent potential data leakage during data or hardware disposal, enabling them to avoid the financial penalties, lost business opportunities, reputational damage and other consequences that can be the result of lost or stolen information.”
“MWE’s China Data Center is among the most advanced, resource-rich destinations for helping international companies navigate China’s complex data security regime in a variety of contexts,” adds Leon C.G. Liu, who is responsible for overseeing the work of the Center. “Our Data Center provides uniquely advantageous insights for transactions, due diligence, investigations and prosecutions, regulatory reviews and normal course of business with employees and stakeholders in this country.”
About MWE China Law Offices
MWE China Law Offices is a Chinese law firm with a seasoned and integrated professional team based in Shanghai that is licensed to practice in the People’s Republic of China.
The Firm’s founders are John Z.L. Huang and Kevin Y. Qian. Mr. Huang was a founding partner and a member of the executive committee, and Mr. Qian served as a key director on the executive committee. The Firm is made up of well- established Chinese lawyers, and possesses an in-depth knowledge and understanding of the local laws, customs and regulations of the People’s Republic of China. With a Western-style approach to client service, the Firm manages to provide legal services and business advice to both Chinese companies and multinational companies doing business in China.
MWE China Law Offices is strategically aligned with McDermott Will & Emery, a premier international law firm with offices in the United States and Europe, to provide global companies based within and outside of China superior global client service with access to leading lawyers within China and around the globe.
