News

Garrigues is celebrating the fifth anniversary of the opening of its office in Shanghai. The last five years have been characterized by the intense volume of the Firm’s activity in China and its consolidation in the Chinese legal market.

Garrigues opened for business in China’s financial capital in September 2005, with a team of two lawyers. The Shanghai team now boasts twenty-five professionals (twenty-one of whom are Chinese). These figures make Garrigues the biggest Spanish law firm in China and one of the largest from Continental Europe. The Shanghai office advises Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American clients (from multinationals to family groups and subsidiaries) and provides professional services, fundamentally in the areas of corporate/commercial law (acquisition of companies, legal advice on business start-ups, etc.), tax, labor and real estate law, and regulated industries.

To mark this anniversary, last night saw Garrigues hold an institutional event at the Spanish Pavilion of the Shanghai Expo, presided over by Antonio Garrigues and the partner in charge of the Shanghai office, Francisco Soler. More than 120 representatives from institutions and the business community attended the event, including the Spanish Consul General in Shanghai, Antonio Segura and the Economic and Trade Consul, Carlos Pascual.

Those in charge of the office stressed the key role played by China in the global economy and highlighted the legal advances made in the last five years, offering foreign companies a future market with legal guarantees. “Although China is still a very important manufacturing center, we have seen a certain change in Spanish investors, who increasingly see the country as market in which to sell and market their products, and not simply a mere factory”, explained Francisco Soler.

Intense activity on the fifth anniversary
With the five-year anniversary and the recent events to mark Spain Day at the Shanghai Expo, the Firm has been working even more intensively over the first few weeks of September.

As regards training, the Iberian team of Garrigues’ European Law group has delivered classes within the framework of collaboration between the Firm and the China-EU School of Law (CESL). Garrigues co-chairs the CESL Professional Training Committee and, as such, coordinates the organization of six courses on European Law for Chinese jurists. Garrigues’ activity was also reflected in “Major Spanish Brands in China Day”, a day spent promoting and providing information on the real Spanish business situation, and continued today with the participation of Antonio Garrigues in the symposium “China, Europe and Latin America: the role of cities in a global world”, which was also attended by Alberto Ruiz Gallardón, in light of the celebration of Madrid Day tomorrow at the Shanghai Expo.