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Speaker 1: The Australian Financial Review. When Australian law firm Mallison Stephen

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Speaker 1: Shak merged with China's king and Wood in twenty twelve,

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Speaker 1: it broke new ground.

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Speaker 2: So Kate WM is the first international firm headquartered in Asia.

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Speaker 2: So the future for US is aligned with very much

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Speaker 2: the emergence of Asia, including China.

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Speaker 1: Shi Jimping was just coming to power, and while the

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Speaker 1: two countries' political and legal systems were vastly different, most lawyers,

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Speaker 1: politicians and business people believe China would continue to open up.

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Speaker 3: To the world.

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Speaker 1: One person who was there right from the start was

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Speaker 1: Chinese lawyer Rupert Lee. He was integral to the merging

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Speaker 1: negotiations and would go on to become the firm's chief

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Speaker 1: operating officer its third most senior executive. But late last year,

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Speaker 1: Rupert Lee was out. His sudden departure led Financial Review

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Speaker 1: journalist Max Shanahan to start digging around, and what he

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Speaker 1: discovered among court files in Beijing, allegedly corrupt wind farm

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Speaker 1: deals in Montenegro and a controversial legal conference in Russia,

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Speaker 1: has raised serious questions about how Kingenwood Mallison's manages risk

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Speaker 1: and conflicts across its jurisdictions.

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Speaker 3: Kingwood Mallisons has no independent directors who might pull them

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Speaker 3: up and say, you know, hold on what deals we

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Speaker 3: being exposed to? Why is Rupert who's on our global

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Speaker 3: board worrying eight million Hong Kong dollars from the firm?

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Speaker 3: When's he going to pay it? Buck?

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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Finn. I'm Lisa Murray. This week Max

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Speaker 1: Shanahan on kwm's China experiment and whether it can last.

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Speaker 1: It's Thursday, June nineteenth. Hi, Max, thanks for coming on

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Speaker 1: the podcast, Lisa, thanks for having me. KM has been

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Speaker 1: operating as a global law firm since twenty twelve. What

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Speaker 1: made you decide to start looking into the merged firm

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Speaker 1: and how it works now?

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Speaker 3: Oh, well, I've always been interested in how the mergers worked.

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Speaker 3: It's a merge between an Australian and a Chinese law firm.

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Speaker 3: They're such radically different legal systems it must be really

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Speaker 3: difficult to bridge those systems. How are they pulling it off?

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Speaker 3: If they are pulling it off? And so the way

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Speaker 3: this sort of all came about was I'd written a

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Speaker 3: story about the global chief executive retiring Soe Kench and

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Speaker 3: then I started to hear about this guy Rupert Lee,

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Speaker 3: who was the global chief operating officer, heard that he

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Speaker 3: was leaving as well, and I'd planned to write a

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Speaker 3: story about it. But then last October one of the

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Speaker 3: international legal trade publications reported that not only was he

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Speaker 3: leaving the firm, Kingwood Mallison's was suing him for eight

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Speaker 3: million Hong Kong dollars, and so that sort of set

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Speaker 3: off all sorts of red flags.

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Speaker 1: So he started looking into Rupert Lee.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so it turned out that he got himself into

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Speaker 3: quite a bit of legal and financial trouble. So obviously

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Speaker 3: there was some sort of falling out, and katiewm had

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Speaker 3: sued Rupert Lee for taking an eight million Hong Kong

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Speaker 3: doll alone from the Hong Kong partnership. So it got

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Speaker 3: to the points where we had to try and track

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Speaker 3: him down. By this time he'd left the firm, he

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Speaker 3: was sort of difficult to get in touch with. So

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Speaker 3: we sent someone around to his place in Hong Kong,

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Speaker 3: in quite a nice neighborhood on Hong Kong Islands, and

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Speaker 3: we dropped a list of questions under his door. A

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Speaker 3: few days went by and I managed to track down

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Speaker 3: a phone number and I gave him a call and

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Speaker 3: he said he'd received our questions and he was going

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Speaker 3: to send me a response.

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Speaker 1: So before we delve into Rupert Lee's financial and legal

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Speaker 1: problems and how he responded to your questions, let's go

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Speaker 1: right back to the start. Why did Mallisons and King

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Speaker 1: and Would decide to merge in the first place.

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Speaker 3: So Mallison's has always been one of the top firms

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Speaker 3: in Australia. It was founded almost two hundred years ago.

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Speaker 3: Two of the current High Court bench did time at Mallison's.

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Speaker 3: There's sort of high profile business people and war directors

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Speaker 3: like Nicola Wakefield Evans for example. They're sort of smattering

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Speaker 3: of kind of conservative politicians that have come out of there.

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Speaker 3: And so it's a place that if you go through

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Speaker 3: law school and you get a clerk shup at Mallison's,

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Speaker 3: you're sort of set up for a good career if

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Speaker 3: you stay in the firm all through the connections you

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Speaker 3: get you can go on to arrange different careers in

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Speaker 3: the bar or in business. And so the context of

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Speaker 3: the merger is about fifteen years ago a lot of

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Speaker 3: Mallison's rivals in Australia were doing deals to tie up

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Speaker 3: with UK firms to add some sort of global element

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Speaker 3: to their business. So Free Hills, an Australian law firm,

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Speaker 3: did a tie up with Herbert Smith Allen's, one of

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Speaker 3: their big rivals with Link Leaders, a UK firm and

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Speaker 3: Mallison's had tried the other few times but nothing really

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Speaker 3: came to pass, so they started to talk to China.

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Speaker 4: Mm hmm.

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Speaker 5: Chinese President Hu Jintao arrived at the White House to

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Speaker 5: an elaborate welcome ceremony. The two leaders spent most of

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Speaker 5: their time talking about the economy, both repeatedly uttering the word.

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Speaker 6: Of the day cooperation, cooperation.

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Speaker 3: And at this time China's economy was really booming and

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Speaker 3: it was the next big thing. Trade between Australia and

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Speaker 3: China was really expanding at a rapid base.

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Speaker 6: Well it was because of the continuing demand from China,

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Speaker 6: largely that Australia's economy managed to fare better than most

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Speaker 6: developed countries during last year's global financial crisis.

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Speaker 3: It was opening up its economy and everyone thought this

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Speaker 3: growth and liberalization would just continue as it was.

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Speaker 7: The pilot Free Trade Zone allows foreign competitors' access to

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Speaker 7: China's highly protected services sector. The government is promising to

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Speaker 7: cut through the red tape for businesses opening here and

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Speaker 7: give investors tax benefits.

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Speaker 3: The merger was eventually done into the last few months

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Speaker 3: of the Hugean Taoer era, and there was a new leader, Xijimping,

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Speaker 3: who was meant to continue on this liberalization.

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Speaker 4: However, it is widely hoped that his new government will

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Speaker 4: take some drastically needed reforms in order to get the

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Speaker 4: country's economy back on track and to fight the ever

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Speaker 4: growing problem of corruption.

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Speaker 1: I was actually in China at the time in twenty twelve,

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Speaker 1: and I remember that period. I remember the merger and

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Speaker 1: everyone being so excited about it, and I also remember

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Speaker 1: writing stories about China at the time opening up not

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Speaker 1: just economically but politically. Everyone expected political reforms from Sheeting Ping,

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Speaker 1: So there was a lot of optimism at the time.

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Speaker 3: And both firms saw a huge opportunity in this to

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Speaker 3: capitalize on that sentiment, and so the dually ended up

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Speaker 3: doing was with King and Wood, which is one of

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Speaker 3: the top Chinese firms that was set up in the

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Speaker 3: early nineties just as private law firms were first allowed

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Speaker 3: in China, and from the start it wanted to really

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Speaker 3: focus on doing international work and appealing to Western clients,

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Speaker 3: so its name is a great example. There was no

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Speaker 3: King no Wood. They were just emulating this ideal of

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Speaker 3: what an imagined kind of authoritative and well connected Western

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Speaker 3: law firm looks like. At the time they merged, there

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Speaker 3: were sort of roughly the same size between one hundred

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Speaker 3: and fifty two hundred partners, and now the Chinese partnership

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Speaker 3: is double the size of the Australian partnership. And there's

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Speaker 3: this great scene in a book that was written about

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Speaker 3: the history of Kingwood Mallson's where these three senior Australian

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Speaker 3: partners get on a plane to Beijing and then they

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Speaker 3: turn up in their shirt sleeves and it's freezing cold,

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Speaker 3: and they make their way to the Kingwood offices in

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Speaker 3: this big tall building in Beijing, and they greeted in

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Speaker 3: this huge boardroom. There's only three of them, and on

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Speaker 3: the other side there's eleven Chinese partners and this guy

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Speaker 3: who was managing partner, as time Strooke Fuller, he leans

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Speaker 3: across to his colleagues and he says, you know, I

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Speaker 3: think we've undercooked this.

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Speaker 1: But despite the Mallison's delegation being completely out numbered, the

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Speaker 1: talks went well, the two firms did end up eventually merging.

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Speaker 1: Tell us about the deal, how did it actually work.

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Speaker 3: So the firm's structured as a Swiss Varian, which is

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Speaker 3: this sort of structure that's not uncommon in these big

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Speaker 3: international law firms, and it means that each member partnership

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Speaker 3: in each country is financially separate, so things go badly

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Speaker 3: in one part of the world, it doesn't bring the

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Speaker 3: rest of the firm down with it. So what's different

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Speaker 3: about Kingwood Mallison's is there's only three main partnerships as Australia,

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Speaker 3: China and Hong Kong, so that's a bit unique. But

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Speaker 3: despite that, it's intended to present to the world as

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Speaker 3: a single firm. It's pitched to clients as I think

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Speaker 3: the line that uses where the top tier international firm

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Speaker 3: for Asia from Asia. So the merger presented heaps of

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Speaker 3: opportunities for the firm, but the different Australian and Chinese

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Speaker 3: attitudes in some cases to governance and risk also through

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Speaker 3: up lots of challenges.

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Speaker 8: What are some of the challenges you've confronted in putting together.

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Speaker 5: Such established firms from such different settings.

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Speaker 8: Yes, we don't have long enough for all of the challenges.

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Speaker 8: It's a classic question.

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Speaker 3: In an interview about a decade ago then global managing

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Speaker 3: partners to it full set as much.

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Speaker 8: Right from the start of Kingwood and Mallisons, this concept

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Speaker 8: of merger of equals not a takeover of Australia of

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Speaker 8: China or China of Australia. Everybody has an equal voice.

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Speaker 3: But he stressed that the two firms still shared these

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Speaker 3: common values and the relationship was developing with speed and

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Speaker 3: everything was going to plan.

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Speaker 8: I think every month and every year that goes by,

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Speaker 8: people see the benefit of merging the firms.

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Speaker 3: And so while this varian structure isolates risk, it also

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Speaker 3: has the effect of clouding visibility over each of the

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Speaker 3: partner firms, particularly in the Mallison's case, when you have

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Speaker 3: clients with big data protection of concerns, they want to

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Speaker 3: know that their data isn't going to be shared with

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Speaker 3: the Chinese part of the firm, So you have to

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Speaker 3: erect these walls within the firm, which sort of compounds

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Speaker 3: the existing walls between the partnerships. So that makes things

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Speaker 3: difficult to manage in some cases. So what it really

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Speaker 3: means is that while each partnership leverages the brand the

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Speaker 3: reputation and the international connections of KWM, in practice, little

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Speaker 3: knowledge or transparency over what each part of the firm

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Speaker 3: is working on. So I spoke to a bunch of

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Speaker 3: former partners and staff at KWM, some of whom were

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Speaker 3: really closely involved in the merger, some of whom were

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Speaker 3: there until quite recently, and they all said that there

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Speaker 3: was always an awareness that there were transparency issues in

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Speaker 3: the partnership. One former partner said they caught it within

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Speaker 3: the firm the Great Wall of China, which he took

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Speaker 3: to me, and the gap between what you understand is

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Speaker 3: happening and what is actually happening in the Chinese partnership.

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Speaker 3: Another gave me an example. They were working with a

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Speaker 3: major bank kill as a client and they had operations

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Speaker 3: in Australia, Hong Kong and China, but they just couldn't

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Speaker 3: find out which partner in the Chinese firm the client

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Speaker 3: was using, so in the end they had to go

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Speaker 3: and ask the client directly. So I was clearly problems

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Speaker 3: with communication between the international elements and yeah, because of

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Speaker 3: all these cybersecurity concerns that clients had, there were big

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Speaker 3: internal boundaries erected between the partnerships. They were on completely

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Speaker 3: different document sharing systems. Even simple inform was difficult to

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Speaker 3: obtain and it really was an environment that was conducive

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Speaker 3: to any sort of corporation or collaboration and rupe.

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Speaker 1: At least job as chief operating officer was to oversee

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Speaker 1: that cooperation between the Australian and Chinese lawyers. But it

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Speaker 1: doesn't sound like there was much going on. Max. When

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Speaker 1: did Lee's problems become a problem for KWM.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, So it turns out that while he was global

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Speaker 3: Chief operating Officer of the firm, which is quite a

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Speaker 3: big job, he was also had this whole range of

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Speaker 3: private business interests on the side, probably the most colorful

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Speaker 3: of which is this payments company, which got caught up

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Speaker 3: in China's gambling crackdown in twenty twenty one. One of

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Speaker 3: its employees was convicted for facilitating payments for an illegal

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Speaker 3: aligning casino run by Sun City Group, which is quite

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Speaker 3: well known in Australia for its junkets operation, which came

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Speaker 3: up in inquiries into Crown and Star casinos. He was

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Speaker 3: alleged to have been part of a group that helped

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Speaker 3: channel funds to the chair of relisted company the chair

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Speaker 3: was also his business partner in a separate business. In

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Speaker 3: twenty twenty three, he gets this huge three hundred and

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Speaker 3: seventy million Hong Kong dollar money lenders claim from this mysterious,

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Speaker 3: small little lender in Kowloon. He says, nothing to worry

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Speaker 3: about there. Even if that is the case, it's sort

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Speaker 3: of a unusual thing for a global law firm executive

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Speaker 3: to be caught up in. And then in February last year,

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Speaker 3: he gets this bankruptcy petitioned from a financial firm in

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Speaker 3: Hong Kong, and Rupert says Katoem actually helped him out

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Speaker 3: here and they even opened a file for him, helped him.

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Speaker 3: He says, security settlement in this bankruptcy claim. Kingwood Mouson's

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Speaker 3: Australia completely denies that, which is a bit unusual. And

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Speaker 3: the other unusual thing is that there's this just lack

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Speaker 3: of agreement between Rupert and KWM about how he actually

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Speaker 3: came to leave the firm. So KWM Australia says that

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Speaker 3: KWM China asked him to resign halfway through last year

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Speaker 3: because of I presume all these financial business issues which

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Speaker 3: are really piling up on top of each other Ruperts

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Speaker 3: said that he actually left of his own cord and

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Speaker 3: that he was retained as a business consultant at the

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Speaker 3: firm until the end of last year, so there's a

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Speaker 3: bit of discordance between those two explanations. Naturally, all of

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Speaker 3: this made me want to look further into what he

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Speaker 3: was doing while I was still working for KIM, and

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Speaker 3: I discovered that in twenty seventeen he became the director

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Speaker 3: of this big state owned electricity company that was also

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Speaker 3: quite a major client to Kingwood Mouson's and about a

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Speaker 3: year before Lee joined the board of that firm, it

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Speaker 3: had brought into a wind farm project in Montenegro that

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Speaker 3: is now the subject of corruption investigations in three separate countries.

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Speaker 1: Max, we're talking about King and Wood Mallison's, the first

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Speaker 1: ever Sino Australian law firm, which has been operating for

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Speaker 1: over a decade now. Your investigation has uncovered some real

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Speaker 1: governance challenges for the firm and these were highlighted in

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Speaker 1: a wind farm deal which its lawyers advised on in Montenegro.

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Speaker 1: As you said, the deal is now the subject of

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Speaker 1: corruption investigations in three separate countries. Tell us about the

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Speaker 1: deal and how KWM was involved.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, So Kingwood Mallisons provided legal advice over the course

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Speaker 3: of about three years for this wind farm project in Montenegro.

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Speaker 3: It was a product of China's Belton Road initiative, which

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Speaker 3: was the signature foreign policy of jijimping. It provided huge

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Speaker 3: opportunities for legal work. So one of these projects took

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Speaker 3: KWM to Malta, which is a small island in the Mediterranean.

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Speaker 3: It's a European Union member country and it sort of

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Speaker 3: tried to leverage that to make its way in the world,

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Speaker 3: tried to attract a lot of foreign investments through becoming

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Speaker 3: a haven for offshore companies. Now rupidly had become a

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Speaker 3: non executive director of this state owned company called shang

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Speaker 3: Hi Electric Power in May twenty seventeen. It was a

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Speaker 3: longtime client of Kingwood Mallison's and his appointment came in

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Speaker 3: the same month that he was appointed as its global

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Speaker 3: chief operating Officer. So Shanghi Electric was involved in a

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Speaker 3: range of deals in Southern Europe, including buying a third

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Speaker 3: of Malta's state owned energy company and a Malta which

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Speaker 3: was in a heap of debt at this point, and

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Speaker 3: so in twenty sixteen, which is about a year before

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Speaker 3: Lee joins the board. Shanghai Electric brought the rights to

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Speaker 3: build this wind farm in Montenegro, which was done as

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Speaker 3: a partnership with an A Malta. The law firm was

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Speaker 3: responsible for completing due diligence on the project. But the

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Speaker 3: real problem with the deal was the price that Shanghai

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Speaker 3: Electric paid for the wind farm. It forked out more

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Speaker 3: than three times of value that the wind farm had

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Speaker 3: garnered just a couple of months previously. And Kingwood Mallinson's

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Speaker 3: was the law firm responsible for drafting the contracts which

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Speaker 3: enabled that deal to go through. And there's never any

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Speaker 3: explanation about why that markup is paid. So Rupert Lee

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Speaker 3: is not alleged to have broken any rules, ought to

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Speaker 3: have been aware that the propriety of the deal had

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Speaker 3: been caught into question. He only became a director after

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Speaker 3: the price markup was paid, and he told me he

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Speaker 3: was unaware that cato IM had even acted on the deal.

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Speaker 1: So max, are the investigations chiefly about that markup in price?

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Speaker 3: Yes, So there's three governments investigating the deal to try

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Speaker 3: and find out why the Montenegro and the Maltese and

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Speaker 3: the Spanish governments are all in on it, and Europoles

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Speaker 3: involved as well. The allegations are that the price was

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Speaker 3: inflated and some of the money eventually found its way

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Speaker 3: to offshore accounts held by senior Maltese politicians, and it

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Speaker 3: was also controversial because of the involvement of this Maltese

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Speaker 3: casino entrepreneur and property developer named Jorgen Fenick. Jorgen Fennick

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Speaker 3: has been accused of all austrating the car bombing murder

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Speaker 3: of an investigative journalist who was looking into the Missouri

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Speaker 3: wind farm deal.

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Speaker 2: Carojuana Galitzia was the country's best known investigative journalist. She

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Speaker 2: was killed on Monday in this car minutes after she

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Speaker 2: left her home in Malta.

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Speaker 3: And another equally suspected deal involving the same characters.

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Speaker 9: Galizia ran a popular blog in which she highlighted the

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Speaker 9: cases of suspected corruption in Malta. Once described as a

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Speaker 9: one woman WikiLeaks, she famously led the Panama Paper's investigation

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Speaker 9: into corruption in Malta.

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Speaker 3: And almost five million euros from the markup made its

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Speaker 3: way to companies controlled by Fenik, so Jorgan Fenik was

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Speaker 3: arrested on these charges related to the car bombing. In

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Speaker 3: late twenty nineteen.

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Speaker 4: Police have now arrested one of the country's most prominent

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Speaker 4: businessmen in connection to the case.

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Speaker 8: Organ Fenek, was detained by armed officers after his yachts

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Speaker 8: was intercepted. As Walter's handling of the case has drawn

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Speaker 8: international criticism.

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Speaker 3: He was released on bail in January this year and

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Speaker 3: there's still no trial dates. Kingwood Mausons isn't alleged to

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Speaker 3: have broken any rules or to have been aware of

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Speaker 3: the potential corruption, and a lot of it happens downstream

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Speaker 3: from its involvement, but I think it is something you'd

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Speaker 3: probably ask questions about you. Why are we writing in

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Speaker 3: this massive markup to this company no one's ever heard of?

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Speaker 3: But Kingwood Mallsons extends its relationship with Shanghai Electric and

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Speaker 3: the Montenegro Deal, continuing to act as its legal advisor,

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Speaker 3: and in twenty eighteen it secures the financing for the

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Speaker 3: project to enable it to actually be constructed and go ahead.

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Speaker 1: You also came across another example that exposed the different

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Speaker 1: approaches of the Australian and Chinese partnerships. How did a

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Speaker 1: KWM lawyer end up as a speaker at a contentious

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Speaker 1: legal conference in Saint Petersburg the year after Russia invaded Ukraine.

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Speaker 3: So the senior kater and partner Tian Wenjing, who also

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Speaker 3: worked on the Montenegro wind farm deal. In May twenty

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Speaker 3: twenty three, she turns up at this big Saint Petersburg

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Speaker 3: legal conference, which is organized by the Russian Ministry of Justice.

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Speaker 3: So this wasn't just your run of the mill legal conference.

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Speaker 3: There are a lot of boring panels about legal professional things,

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Speaker 3: but the sort of keynote speakers at this event were

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Speaker 3: the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and the Russian former

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Speaker 3: president dmitriy Medvedev. There were political panels, including one which

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Speaker 3: is called the Russophobia twenty first century Nazism. Most gollingly,

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Speaker 3: probably there was a panel which promoted the forced relocation

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Speaker 3: of Ukrainian orphans into Russia. This is the subject of

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Speaker 3: an international Criminal Court arrest warrant. That panel was headed

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Speaker 3: by two Russian cabinet ministers. Tian Wenjing she appeared on

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Speaker 3: two panels.

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Speaker 2: It is my honor to talk about Chinese approach from

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Speaker 2: a perspective of chalish.

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Speaker 3: Lawyer alongside representatives of these major Russian state owners enterprises.

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Speaker 6: I never could expect to witness such changes that were

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Speaker 6: observing currently.

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Speaker 3: One of which was the United Shipbuilding Corporation, whose representative

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Speaker 3: was actually leading the panel.

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Speaker 6: I'm very optimistic about the current situation Russia in now

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Speaker 6: is it undergoing the period of changes.

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Speaker 3: This is the company which builds the majority of Russia's

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Speaker 3: naval fleet and it's sanctioned by the Australian government. Spoke

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Speaker 3: about opportunities arising from other global law firms exits from

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Speaker 3: Russia and the growing market for Russian companies to arbitrate

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Speaker 3: disputes in Hong Kong and China. The program for one

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Speaker 3: of her panels referred to unfriendly countries such as Australia,

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Speaker 3: which were continuing to strengthen their sanctions policies against Russia

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Speaker 3: and Belarus. And a result of all the Western sanctions

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Speaker 3: on Russia, which has isolated from the global financial system

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Speaker 3: and then forced big Western companies to pull out of

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Speaker 3: the country. That's opened up a lot of opportunities for

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Speaker 3: Chinese companies, and it's natural that Chinese lawyers would follow

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Speaker 3: that business. It's quite a lucrative source of business. But

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Speaker 3: this kind of shows the intensions at the heart of

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Speaker 3: this Kingwood Malson's relationship. On its Australian website, the firm

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Speaker 3: is advising clients on how to comply with Western sanctions

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Speaker 3: on Russia, including on its energy sector. On its Chinese website,

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Speaker 3: Tian co author and article with this chief executive of

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Speaker 3: a Russian energy plant company on how to actually invest

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Speaker 3: in the Russian energy sector, and this guy has eventually

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Speaker 3: a couple of months later a sanctioned.

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Speaker 1: The very different approaches.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, kind of acting at cross purposes and pulling in

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Speaker 3: very different directions.

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Speaker 1: So then a final question Max, can KWM continue as

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Speaker 1: a Sino Australian firm or do these different approaches to

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Speaker 1: governance and risk management start to affect its brand and

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Speaker 1: reputation so much that it could force a rethink on

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Speaker 1: the merger.

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Speaker 3: So this whole merger was based on on a bit

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Speaker 3: of a punt, which is a rare thing for law firms,

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Speaker 3: that China's growth was going to continue as it was,

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Speaker 3: It's economy and politics was going to continue to liberalize,

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Speaker 3: but none of that came to pass. So the original

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Speaker 3: sort of thesis for the merger isn't there anymore. But

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Speaker 3: even if the Australian Partnership wanted to leave the firm,

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Speaker 3: there are a few things holding it back. So the

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Speaker 3: Hong Kong Partnership, which was the only actual combination between

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Speaker 3: Australian and Chinese lawyers, has become a really profitable part

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Speaker 3: of the firm. And probably the most inconvenient thing is

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Speaker 3: that there's a sort of penalty clause in the merger agreement.

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Speaker 3: So if the Australian Partnership were to pull out, then

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Speaker 3: it would have to give up the Hong Kong Partnership,

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Speaker 3: which is probably something it doesn't want to do. So

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Speaker 3: all of this, I think kind of shines a light

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Speaker 3: on law firm governance, which probably isn't the most exciting topic,

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Speaker 3: but when you consider it in light of what's happened

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Speaker 3: to the big accounting and consulting firms who have the

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Speaker 3: same private partnership structure, law firms have really got out

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Speaker 3: of this whole post PEC tax leaks upheaval unscathed. Kingod

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Speaker 3: Mallison's has no independent directors who might pull them up

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Speaker 3: and say, you know, hold on what deals were being

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Speaker 3: exposed to. Why is Rupert who's on our global board

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Speaker 3: borrowing eight million Hong Kong dollars from the firm, when's

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Speaker 3: he going to pay it back? And also they don't

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Speaker 3: publish accounts. There's no sort of transparency. Despite being a

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Speaker 3: global organization, as they say, having almost two hundred partners

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Speaker 3: in Australia, they'd be bringing in hundreds of millions of

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Speaker 3: dollars in revenue. But the end of the day, it's

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Speaker 3: kind of a branding issue, all right. They advertise themselves

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Speaker 3: as this single global law firm will connect you with Asia,

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Speaker 3: where the law firm for Asia for the Asian century.

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Speaker 3: But also we have no idea what's going on in

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Speaker 3: our Chinese partnership, and the firm can't even speak as

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Speaker 3: one entity. I mean, when the going is good, it's

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Speaker 3: Kingwood Mallisons, the global law firm. But when you start

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Speaker 3: to ask questions, it's where Kingwood Mallison's Australia, Kingwood Mallisons

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Speaker 3: Hong Kong and Kingwood Mallison's China. So I think that's

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Speaker 3: something that it has to deal with.

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Speaker 1: Thanks Max, Thanks Lissen, Thank you for listening to The finn.

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Speaker 1: I'm Lisa Murray with Financial Review reporter Maxim Shanahan joining

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Speaker 1: the podcast today. The Finn is produced by Alex Gau

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00:24:31,240 --> 00:24:35,240
Speaker 1: with assistance from Mandy Coolan. Fiona Buffini is head of

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