On May 26, 2016, the In-House Community hosted its inaugural regional Counsel of the Year Awards Ceremony at the Hong Kong Jockey Club Happy Valley Clubhouse. The ceremony brought together the cream of the legal industry from across Asia and the Middle East and recognised achievement across a range of categories, assessing counsel in the areas of dedication, innovation, efficiency and value, integration, encouragement and improvement and corporate social responsibility and diversity.We were truly honoured to receive over 50 nominations for in-house team of the year and know that their contributions will continue to be valued. Revealed below, we congratulated numerous lawyers and teams in a variety of industries for their sterling work over the past 12 months. Teams from all across the Middle East and Asia congregated at this full-capacity event which hosted 150 members of the region’s top legal talent.The overall winning In-House Team and In-House Counsel awards were judged by a hand-picked panel which included Stephen Maloy, Former GC and Senior Counsel at General Electric (GE) Asia Pacific, Sue Lynn Koo, former Head of Legal, Compliance and Secretariat for DBS Group, David Miles, Chair of Asia Community Venture and Former Chair of Asia Latham & Watkins and Kirsty Dougan, Head of Asia for Axiom and Former Senior Regional Counsel for Diageo.The evening also demonstrated the generosity of the In-House Community and our external lawyer friends by raising HK$74,000 for the optical charity Lifeline Express. Nellie Fong, the founder of Lifeline Express told us that each eye operation in rural China costs HK$2,000 so the evening also brought the gift of sight to 37 people in rural China.Commenting on the awards, Patrick Dransfield, Co-Director of In-House Community said “We are delighted to announce these awards and extend our congratulations to the winners, who are together ensuring the legal industry continues to develop and evolve for the benefit of businesses in Asia. While winning is obviously important, the true purpose of the awards is to help forge a benchmark of best practice and celebrate the vital contribution that in-house legal departments make to our industry and our region.”Tim Gilkison, founder and Managing Director of In-House Community stated “It is our intention that the annual In-House Community Counsel awards will have a wider significance and send ripples out into the companies you work for by providing a benchmark for in-house counsel performance that can be understood so that the work and valuable contribution of in-house counsel departments can be appreciated not just by your colleagues but also by society at large. So we hope to see many of you next year, too!”We at the In-House Community would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all of our winners and thank everyone who attended for their support on what was a terrific event. Please note that a more in-depth write up of the awards will be in the upcoming edition of ASIAN-MENA COUNSEL. |
A full list of the winners follows:
Our In-House Community Commended External Counsel are (alphabetically):
Australia China Hong Kong India Indonesia Japan Malaysia |
Philippines Alexander J. Poblador, Poblador Bautista & Reyes Francis Lim. ACCRALAW Gwen Grecia-de Vera, PJS Law Rafael A. Morales, Morales Justiniano Peña & LumaguiSingapore Cheng Yoke Ping, Rajah & Tann Davinder Singh, Drew & Napier John D. MacKay, Latham & Watkins Kala Anandarajah, Rajah & Tann Kelvyn Oo, Pinsent Masons Kent Phillips, Berwin Leighton Paisner Low Kah Keong, WongPartnership Mark Cheng, Rajah & Tann Ng Eng Leng, Rodyk & Davidson Prawiro Widjaja, Allen & Gledhill Sandy Foo, Drew & Napier Sean Prior, AshurstSouth Korea Bumkyu Sung, Kim & Chang Hong Jun An, Lee & Ko Jae Ho Baek, Kim & Chang Jihyun Kim, Kim & Chang Jin Young Chung, Kim & Chang Lewis McDonald, Herbert Smith Freehills Sae Youn Kim, Yulchon Soo Man Park, Kim & Chang Stephen Le Vesconte, Linklaters Taiwan Thailand Vietnam United Arab Emirates United Kingdom |