Hualian Extends Influence in Energy Law Practice

Hualian has seen its influence in energy law practice further extended in China as its lawyers were recently invited to share their expertise by speaking at a range of specialised forums.

Shawn He, Hualian’s chief lawyer in energy and environment practice group, spoke on the post-Kyoto impact on China’s CDM (Clean Development Mechanism) early this month in Beijing at a seminar involving most of the top CDM developers, buyers and verifiers and sellers in China.

With the first commitment period of Kyoto Protocol approaching its end in 2012 and the post Kyoto landscape still unclear, China’s CDM has seen disputes arising in number over the past year. Mr He analyzed the state and trends of such disputes and gave recommendations on how to deal with them effectively to the seminar, held by China’s Low Carbon Alliance.

He also was invited by Agence Française de Développement (AFD) to speak on another forum about energy efficiency investment on Nov. 5 in Wuhan, capital city of central China’s Hubei Province. His speech was focused on energy performance contracting (EPC), an innovative commercial mechanism to achieve energy efficiency, in China. He specifically talked about the laws and the series of EPC national industry standards of China in which he has been heavily involved in the drafting.  EPC has been adopted by Wuhan Municipal Government, which co-hosted the forum with AFD, as a means to retrofit dozens of buildings it owns with financing from a loan facility from French government.

Hualian’s expertise has also been recognized by the media. At the invitation of Energy Review, one of China’s most prominent monthly magazines in energy area, Hualian lawyers helped the magazine review and select China’s overseas merger and acquisition (M&A) deals of the year in energy area, which will appear in the December issue of the magazine this year.