Hong Kong is the most important international financial centre after New York and London, and the largest international private wealth management hub in Asia.
Many of the world’s leading creators and owners of private wealth are from the region.
We work with a diverse range of clients from high net worth individuals and families, family offices, wealth managers and charities to listed companies, banks, and financial institutions in the region and across the world. Our key focus is to ensure we deliver sophisticated yet practical solutions to achieve your personal and business objectives.
Our expertise covers a range of trust, international tax planning and corporate issues. These include succession and estate planning, family office structuring and operations, charities and philanthropy, Hong Kong, UK and Canadian tax, mergers and acquisitions, as well as strategic alliances. We deal with disputes arising out of trusts, wills, estate administration, family business arrangements, property, shareholdings, business partnership and corporate related matters. We have also expanded our offering recently with the additional of both local and international real estate capabilities to the office. Our partner-led team delivers a wealth of experience in relation to commercial property transactions.
Our team in Hong Kong is qualified to practise law in a wide-range of locations including Hong Kong, England and Wales and Canada. Our team is also multilingual and speaks English, French, Cantonese and Mandarin. Our lawyers have consistently been recognised as leading practitioners in the fields in industry directories, including Chambers Asia Pacific, Chambers High Net Worth, Asia Pacific Legal 500, Citywealth and Legal Week.
Charles Russell Speechlys LLP’s branch office in Hong Kong is a limited liability partnership established under the Hong Kong Legal Practitioners Ordinance with the name Charles Russell Speechlys LLP. Each of our offices provides a gateway to our whole firm connecting you with the best advisers and serving your cross-border legal needs from our 12 offices across the UK, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
For more information please contact Simon Green.
Private Wealth
Our aim is to enable you to make the most of your wealth now and in the future. We will support you to ensure a smooth succession, not just of family assets, but of the values which brought you wealth in the first place.
With a full service legal team, our advice is offered in the context of your succession planning, your marriage, your family life and values, your property and your assets. We are deeply embedded in the world of private wealth, advising private banks, trust companies and family offices.
We are here to help you with:
- Estate planning and succession
- Wills and inheritance
- Trust establishment, administration and restructuring
- Charities and philanthropy
- Matrimonial and family law
- Immigration law
- Personal tax and asset planning
- UK taxes and compliance
- International tax and trust planning
- Family office structuring and operations
- Pre-IPO and post-IPO trust planning
- Probate and estate administration
- Property (local and international)
- Reputation management
- Trust and estate litigation
- Business planning
- Art and luxury
Family
The best advice in the worst of times.
Our approach is humane, sophisticated and pragmatic. We understand the needs of people with complex lives. Many of our clients are from international families. They often have significant assets. Several are in the public eye. We have pioneered a cross-disciplinary approach to family law, and work alongside our experts in tax and trusts, trust disputes, corporate law, immigration, property disputes and other areas of law to deliver a smart, bespoke service to our clients.
Today our work is not just about what happens once a relationship, be it marriage, civil partnership or unmarried cohabitation, breaks down. It is ever more important to plan for the future and we advise on a great range of relationship agreements and wealth preservation strategies.
Flexibility is key to our approach. With a team of mediation and collaboratively trained lawyers, we are not afraid to recommend innovative ways to resolve disputes. Litigation should usually be the last resort, but we protect our clients’ interests fiercely - and successfully - when court proceedings are required.
We are here to help you with:
- Family Law, Divorce and Separation
- Child Custody and Financial Application
- Pre and Post-Nuptial Agreements
- Injunctions and Non-Molestation Orders
- Relocation and Removal Applications
- Wardship and Child Abduction under the Hague Convention
- Surrogacy and Parental Orders
- Same-sex relationship disputes
Disputes and Regulatory
Our Hong Kong practice is part of our 150+ strong litigation team which acts for multinational corporations, major companies, governments, regulatory bodies, trust companies and high net worth individuals in resolving complex, high-value commercial disputes.
We will work quickly to get to the heart of your issue take the initiative and innovate where it is needed. We know that off-the-shelf is off the table, so we draw on our experience with a range of clients to bring you tailored, strategic and pragmatic advice. It is simple. We are driven to achieve a successful outcome for every client – every time and whatever it takes.
We are here to help you with:
Real Estate
We deliver a comprehensive range of property related services both locally and internationally to a range of clients including occupiers, corporates, major investors, developers, government entities and high-profile families and individuals across Hong Kong and the wider Asia region.
We offer advice that spans the property asset life-cycle – from the development stage to the point of sale. We will dig deep into your portfolio to help you realise its full value – tackling changing regulations or corporate structures. When it comes to disputes, we can call in the experience of our local team to minimise disruption and maximise net recovery – so that you can get on to the next challenge.
In addition, we have extensive experience of advising you in relation to investing into both commercial and residential property in the UK.
We are here to help you with:
- Development
- Investment and finance
- Regeneration and housebuilding
- Occupier services
- International investments (commercial & residential)
- Dispute resolution
- Hotels and hospitality
Corporate
Wherever you are in your business growth story, you will not be doing it alone as you go forward. We help start-ups find the right financial structure, connect with funding markets and prepare for the next stage of growth. We give fast-growing companies responsive advice that lets you scale-up, develop brands, build market share and attract new investment.
We act as a partner to established multi-nationals who need full-service legal support to operate across multiple jurisdictions.
We are here to help you with:
Sport
We have been at the forefront of providing legal advice to the sports sector for over 100 years and has acted in many of the leading cases and projects that have helped to shape what is now known as ‘sports law’.
Our top rated sports team has wide-ranging experience of corporate and commercial matters as well as matters concerning intellectual property, rules and regulations, disciplinary issues, anti-doping and general disputes. We have the ability to service you in many key locations worldwide through our offices in Hong Kong, London, and Dubai. We also have a number of sports law experts based across our offices in Europe.
Key areas of expertise include:
- Sports Integrity: including governance, investigations, disciplinary proceedings, reputation management, safeguarding, and anti-doping.
- Sports Rights & Marketing: including media rights, sponsorship and marketing deals, sports data rights and projects.
- Sports Technology: including esports, technology businesses, investors and sports bodies at the forefront of developments and technology projects.
- Sport Disputes: including a wide range of commercial disputes that arise in sports, relating to professional negligence, sports broadcasting and media rights, licensing and merchandising rights for major sports events, and commercial exploitation of the image rights of athletes. Our team’s experience includes representing you in local courts and also arbitrations before the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), based in Lausanne.
For more information, please contact Patrick Chan (Hong Kong), Edward Craig (London) or Mark Hill (Dubai).
