当今中国杰出的总法律顾问们积极参与到企业的战略决策中去，结合法律专长和行业知识，为企业拓展业务领域、开拓新兴市场、优化商业模式、激励企业研发，同时对行业立法产生着重要的影响和推进作用。
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Cao Haiyang Fannie Fan Guan Rui He Yinsheng Liao Junya Stuart Lin Ma Yihan Qiao Wei Qin Jian Wang Yiqun Margarita Yao Jenny Zeng Zhang Cuimei Audrey Zhou Stella Zhou |
今年上榜的总法律顾问横跨多个行业，包括互联网、医疗、消费品、教育等。这些行业的发展日新月异，总法律顾问这一角色的含义也在不断更新。完美世界股份有限公司总法律顾问、副总裁马弋琀女士告诉ALB，在她看来，总法律顾问既是公司利益的守护者，也是公司的战略资产。对于前者，马弋琀表示，在保护公司利益时，一方面公司总法需要与相关部门展开良好合作，制定并完善公司风险管理的一系列制度和规则。总法要在公司里树立起合规合法，“力出一孔，利出一孔”的企业文化。另一方面，对于具体的项目和交易，公司的总法需要及时就公司经营中的核心问题与管理层进行有效的沟通，确保管理层在充分知情的情况下做出决定。
而对于“战略资产”这一角色，她的理解是：“公司的总法需要关注其任职企业所在生态圈里各个Stakeholder（利益相关者）的变化，深入理解企业所在行业的国内外商业环境、交易逻辑和监管态势，有前瞻性地评估变化可能带来的影响，并及时地与管理层沟通，从而减少或降低因为信息缺失所造成的商业决策失误。”
网易游戏法务总经理周洁女士履职已有七年之久。她认为总法应当具备优秀的法律专业素养、敏锐的商业洞察力和高效的决策力，同时还要具备优秀的领导力，善于吸纳人才，为法务团队赋能。
“这意味着总法律顾问首先要有大局观和战略思维，面对复杂疑难问题能够有魄力地提供解决方案；其次要对业务运营模式和公司商业目标有充分的认知，并且对行业发展趋势有前瞻性的预判，从而针对未来可能存在的风险提前准备预案；最后作为管理者，总法律顾问要塑造团队文化，组建一支富有战斗力和合作精神的法务队伍。”周洁说。
平安医疗健康管理股份有限公司法律合规部负责人曾妮女士向ALB分享了她眼中“总法律顾问”这一角色的四层含义。她提出，首先，总法应当勇于做企业的吹哨人。她说：“总法律顾问和法务人是与国家颁布的法律、规章及政策变化距离最近的专业人士。适应法律、政策变化，及时预警、吹哨，让企业健康良性发展是总法律顾问的首要角色。”
但这并不意味着法律合规部门与业务部门是对立的，恰恰相反，曾妮指出，总法的第二层重要角色就是辅助人——辅助交易更顺利进行，不产生交易纠纷，甚至辅助设计交易结构，从而使得公司利益得到最大化。
总法的价值还体现在“建议人”这一角色上。在曾妮看来，相比于一般法律人员，总法往往能看到企业经营更宏观的层面。基于长期处理风险、应对不确定性的工作经验，以及对政策法规的近距离了解，总法的建议总能为企业战略添砖加瓦，带来更多价值。
此外，曾妮认为总法还承载着“凝聚人”这一角色。她告诉ALB：“总法带领的是一个团队，让每个员工从内心领会公司的战略目标，激发员工发自内心的责任感，让员工的个人价值得以体现，打造一个高效尽责的团队，做成一件事，成就一批人是总法的重要职责。”
过去一年的关键词当属新冠疫情。在平安医疗的曾妮看来，新冠疫情暴露出中国医疗保障和医疗服务方的一些短板，例如医疗服务可及性的薄弱、医学检验检测能力的欠缺；基层医疗有待提升、个人健康需求有待满足；医保基金进一步承压等。在这样的大的行业背景和强监管的宏观趋势下，平安医保科技也不遗余力地在业务领域内强化相关服务。而随着新兴业务不断涌现，兼顾商业发展与法律合规则成为了总法必须面对的一大挑战。曾妮认为，在种种新兴业务之中，若想要平衡商业与法律的关系，既需要专业技术，也需要管理艺术。
“说到底，要牢牢抓住两个根本。一个根本是坚守底线与责任，这也是最重要的。另一个根本是，要对公司的业务和商业逻辑有深刻认知。传统法律合规工作往往因为缺乏对商业的理解而受到诟病，这在快速发展与变化的行业甚至是致命的。在平安医疗，我们将对业务和商业逻辑的理解和认知称为‘前倾’。如果将第一个根本比作法务工作的‘地基’，那么牢牢扎根于地基的同时，我们还要‘前倾’。前倾是一种态度，也是更具价值能力的体现。为企业良性发展保驾护航，在创新与风险之中寻找有效平衡，我想，这就是我们法律合规部门最重要的价值所在。”曾妮说。
过去一年同时还见证了互联网行业的飞速发展。马弋琀告诉ALB，互联网大文娱行业在过去一两年充满活力、竞争激烈、玩法多样、出海势头强劲，商业模式和产品模式不断在创新。这样的趋势在网络游戏和直播领域有着显著的体现。周洁表示，这些领域逐渐呈现精品化、多元化、国际化的发展趋势。游戏企业更加注重游戏品质，创造优质的游戏内容，探索新的游戏品类，在不断衍生新业态的同时践行“走出去”战略，中国游戏产品的国际影响力逐渐扩大。
在行业繁荣发展的同时，监管的脚步也在加快。马弋琀说：“监管层面，不仅出台了很多重要的新法规，而且监管的力度也越来越大，方式和工具也越来越高效。具体来说，我们所处的行业面临的监管要求和法律环境的变化集中在三个方面：数据合规、知识产权、内容合规。例如《民法典》《数据安全法》《个人信息保护法（草案）》等法律法规生效或出台，《著作权法》《专利法》《未成年人保护法》等法律迎来了重大修改，多个主管机关密集开展的APP收集个人信息的专项检查等。这些都对互联网文娱行业的内容制作、发行、运营以及内部合规管理提出了更高的要求，需要我们快速解读并做出相应的合规应对措施。”
在此背景下，如何在合规的前提下保持公司强大的市场竞争力是法务团队面临的重要课题。周洁对这一课题的思考是： “在我看来，商业和法律并不是此消彼长的关系，而是呈现互相成就的态势。日常工作中，网易游戏法务团队从法律角度为公司商业目标的实现提供强有力的保障，一次次实现业务新项目从零到一的合规运营；另一方面，兼具商业思维和法律思维的公司法务团队，深度参与行业相关政策法规和标准的制定，从实务的角度推动立法和司法的进步。”
马弋琀也表示：“企业的经营活动一定要遵守法律和监管的要求，这样才能打造一个公平守信的营商环境。法律禁止的事情企业是不能做的，这是底线。但是数字经济时代，技术、产品、商业模式的迭代越来越快，法律的制定有时会有滞后性或者不清晰，这种情况下，我们站在产品研发、商业目的及社会公众利益等多角度，综合评价法律风险，找到风险的边界，给业务提供安全性的同时，也推进了业务的发展。但我们同时会持续关注政策法规的变化，及时调整对边界的界定。”
面对过去充满变化的一年，总法律顾问们都采取了相应的创新举措。据张翠美介绍，海尔法务团队的创新主要体现在科技手段在法律工作中的应用。她说： “为适应大数据时代下跨国集团企业法律工作的需求，海尔法务团队持续升级迭代了全球法律风险数字化管理平台，加深法律+科技应用与商业目标的结合，将合同管理、公司管理、合规管理、内外部律师管理、案例资源管理等进行了模块化、产品化、数字化。一方面，可以灵活组装，与业务、财务等全流程进行无缝对接，打通信息孤岛，提升业务风险智能管理的效率，同时，商业法律云既包括了海尔集团法务工作经验数据，也汇集了全球法律法规及相关案例，能够借助及时、全面的数据，对这些数据进行分析，形成法律风险的指导书。合同、公司相关事务的处理也在商业法律云上实现了标准模块化管理。该系统同还能实行法律人员抢单和计酬机制，提升法律团队成员的效率，并将高度专业性的法律工作集中处理和归档，实现法律信息共享，定期输出法律评估报告，从而支持商业战略目标的实现，推动实现法律商业价值的最大化。”
完美世界法务团队也通过创新的技术手段提升法务工作效能。马弋琀提出培养数据赋能型法务的观点，她告诉ALB，完美世界集团法务部以大数据分析赋能法务工作，完全自主创新设计开发、密切结合文化产业业务样态，量身打造了四大数字化法务服务和管理系统——合同审核系统、侵权线索和诉讼案件管理系统、侵权监测系统、商标检索审核系统，为全公司的合同审核、知识产权保护及最小化信息死角业务决策提供了可视化、前瞻性的分析工具。
在四大系统中，马弋琀尤其指出：“合同审核与数据分析系统不仅有强大的合同管理功能，极其显著地提高了合同审核效率，还能通过深挖大数据价值及时识别运营中的风险和趋势，为管理层的决策提供客观的、可视化、可量化的支持依据，直接助力业务线提升运营管理的水平和风险控制能力。”
此外，考虑到完美世界集团的业务是典型的互联网2C业务，产品迭代快、前沿创新多，仅是合同文本审核已不足以应对日益复杂的合规风险，马弋琀创新性地提出培养产品经理型法务的观点。她解释道：“完美世界法务部及时调整自身定位，宏观上把握市场瞬息变化的乌卡时代特色，微观上切入互联网产品研发和运营的每一个细节，把传统法务从合同审核专员转型为‘带有法律视角的产品经理’，深入到产品的每一细节，围绕‘用户体验’和‘监管合规’双重视角，为产品从立项到上线运营制定一站式、全周期、灵活的合规解决方案。”
在这样的理念指导下，完美世界法务部从每一新业务项目筹备之初，就“贴身式”进驻项目，全面了解商业模式、研发运营、市场布局，提供从市场准入、竞品调研、在线协议开发、知产保护、日常运营的全方位支持，且与产品保持同步迭代。通过深入产品的“神经末梢”，法务团队从“用户感知+监管合规”的双重视角来审核功能设计、交互界面、跳转逻辑、文本标识、客服流程、应答话术等环节。
“现在，法务部已成为产品研发中不可缺少的‘闸口’，法务版‘产品经理’也真正把平衡商业诉求与合规要求落实到每个场景中，和业务部门形成了良好的配合。”马弋琀说。
网易游戏法务团队在飞速发展的网络游戏行业里完成了一系列具有首创意义的代表性案件。周洁告诉ALB，网易游戏法务团队在IP维权过程中，独立完成被业界称为“网络游戏直播侵权第一案”的《梦幻西游》直播纠纷案件，该案是全国首例对网络游戏直播侵权做出明确定性的司法判决，为中国游戏直播行业的规范化指明了方向。此外，他们还完成了《梦幻西游2》反垄断系列案件，该案作为全国首例游戏垄断纠纷案，对明晰产业规则，引导、规制网络游戏产业和直播行业发展具有重要意义。
“我们希望能够通过案件推动司法，对行业出现的新的法律问题有一个判定，司法能及时的通过判决给行业树立一些规则，从而促进游戏和相关行业更健康有序的发展。”周洁说。
几位受访总法在各自的领域中都观察到监管愈加严格的趋势。周洁认为，从政策角度来看，网络游戏行业保持着高速增长，政府主管部门对游戏内容监管整体趋严的同时，行业立法也日趋完善，对游戏相关的法律问题，司法也频频作出回应。可以预见的是，网络游戏行业会在强监管、强保护的政策下，逐渐呈现健康、有序、繁荣的发展态势。
在此背景下，周洁未来会带领法务团队继续开展行业调研，积极参与网络游戏、直播、电竞相关政策法规和标准的制定，推动立法和司法的进步，进而促进公司业务和行业的健康可持续发展；同时，还将提高应变能力，深入了解商业目标和业务模式，敏锐地识别风险并及时提出符合业务需求的解决方案，并且不断吸收精通各国法律和人文习惯的法律人才，为游戏产品全球发行、公司投资布局以及全球化战略保驾护航。
马弋琀也向ALB分享了她的观察。她指出，数字经济的蓬勃发展将带来更多未知的发展机会，市场环境瞬息万变，变得更加难以预测和不确定。国家在数据保护、内容监管方面会日益趋严，对于虚拟货币、虚拟财产、区块链等新问题可能也会陆续出台更具细节的规定。
“为了应对这样的变化，我希望我的团队首先要对新事物抱有一个好奇的态度，喜欢研究、能够不断地去学习。同时，要不断打磨自己的专业技能，关注国内外相关领域的立法和司法判例。”她说。
曾妮告诉ALB，从近年来不断调整的监管政策可以看出国家对医保体系改革的决心很大。在利好政策的推动下，行业以及公司业务都迎来了大爆发期，不少创新业务、模式、产品应运而生，但都处于“摸着石头过河”的阶段。因此，未来平安医疗的法务团队还需要不断在探索中完善规则，甚至创造规则，将法律合规工作赋予前瞻性，通过长期持续的研判和学习，促进团队成长，保证团队的长久战斗力。
China’s most outstanding general counsel are today actively participating in their organisations’ strategic business decision-making by using their legal expertise and industry knowledge to help expand business areas, explore emerging markets, optimize business models, and protect the innovation resulting from R&D. They are also having significant impact on, and playing an important role in, promoting industry legislation.
The general counsel in the list this year hail from multiple industries, including the Internet, healthcare, consumer goods and education. With the rapid development of these industries, general counsel have taken on greater responsibilities. Ma Yihan, general counsel and vice-president of mass media company Perfect World tells ALB that the general counsel is the guardian of the company's interests, and meanwhile, a part of the company's strategic assets. As the guardian, the general counsel collaborates with other departments in formulating and perfecting risk management systems and rules, and meanwhile fosters the company's compliance culture, and advocates the idea of "where there is an effort, there is a profit". In handling specific projects and transactions, the general counsel communicates effectively with the management team with regard to core operation issues to ensure that the management team makes informed decisions.
As a part of the company's strategic assets, "the general counsel ought to keep abreast of the changes of various stakeholders in the ecosystem where the company lives and know well the company's industry in terms of the domestic and overseas business environment, trading logic and regulatory situation, and should be able to foresee the possible impact of those changes, and then communicate with the management team effectively, to reduce the business decision-making errors caused by lack of information," Ma says.
Having served as the legal general manager of Netease Games for seven years, Zhou Jie (Audrey) believes that a good general counsel should have keen business acumen, efficient decision-making ability, excellent leadership, and be good at absorbing talents and empowering the legal team, in addition to having profound legal expertise.
"It means that the general counsel must first have an overall view and strategic thinking, and be able to provide innovative and practical solutions to complex and difficult problems; secondly, we must know really well about the business operation model and the company's business goals, to form a forward-looking prediction of the industry development trend, so that we can develop contingency plans beforehand to respond to possible risks in the future; and finally, as a manager, the general counsel's responsibilities also include fostering a team culture that helps build a team with strong resilience and the spirit of cooperation," Zhou says.
Zeng Ni (Jenny) is the head of the legal compliance department at Ping An Medical and Healthcare Management. She shares with ALB her observations of the role of general counsel. She believes that there are four connotations about this role. First, the general counsel must be the whistle-blower of the company. "As general counsel and legal professionals, keeping abreast of the changes in laws, regulations and policies is our needless-to-say job. I believe that it is our first-priority job to timely learn about changes in laws and policies, and give timely warning – blow the whistle, to ensure the healthy and compliance development of the company," Zeng says.
But that does not mean that the legal and compliance department is in opposition to the business department. On the contrary, the general counsel is the helper, which is the second important role of the general counsel – helping the transactions to proceed more smoothly, helping to prevent transaction disputes, or even helping to design transaction structures, so that the company's interests can be maximized, Zeng points out.
The value of the general counsel is also seen in the role of "adviser". In Zeng's view, the general counsel sees the business operations from a more macro perspective. Based on long-term work experience in dealing with risks and uncertainties, and with the keen insight of policies and regulations, the general counsel is able to contribute to the company's strategy and bring more value to the company.
Furthermore, Zeng sees the general counsel as someone who binds the whole team together. "When leading a team, it is important to make sure that each member knows well about the company's strategic goals, inspire their sense of ownership and responsibilities, and allow the value of each member to be seen. Building a cohesive, efficient and responsible team, empowering each member to be their best, and accomplishing tasks successfully, I believe that these are the duties of the general counsel," Zeng tells ALB.
As the general counsel of the commercial legal platform at electronics and appliances company Haier Group, Zhang Cuimei believes that the role the general counsel is closely connected with the company's strategy. The general counsel is not only a legal expert, but also should "have three mindsets and capabilities, and should be able balance two relationships. The three mindsets mean to think from technology, business and globalization perspectives. Technology means innovation and keen sense of new opportunities. Business means supporting the implementation of the company's strategy, helping the business to develop with the focus on the company's core competitiveness and differentiated profit model, and staying alert of compliance risks in the international market. And balancing two relationships means to ensure the balance of compliance risks and the company's strategic development and innovation, and the balance of the team's undertaking of the company's overall strategy and maximization of employees' personal value," Zhang explains.
BALANCING LEGAL AND BUSINESS
The COVID-19 pandemic has defined the past year. According to Zeng of Ping An Medical and Healthcare, the pandemic has exposed some weaknesses of China's medical insurance and medical service providers, such as the lack of access to medical services, and the lack of medical inspection and testing capabilities; basic-level medical care services need to be improved to meet the healthcare needs of individuals; and the medical insurance fund is under greater pressure. Seeing the big picture of the industry and the macro trend of intensified regulation, Ping An Medical Insurance Technology makes every effort to strengthen services in the related business areas. With the continuous emergence of new businesses, how to ensure compliance while supporting the business development has become a major challenge facing the general counsel. Zeng believes that amidst the emergence of new businesses, to achieve the compliance-business-balance, it needs both the expertise and the art of managing.
"In a nutshell, we must stick to two fundamental principles: the first and primary one is to know where our bottom line is and what our responsibilities are, and then hold fast to them; and other one is to have a profound knowledge of the company's businesses and business logic. The conventional legal compliance work is often criticized for lack of understanding of business, which could be fatal in a fast-growing and changing industry. At Ping An Medical and Healthcare, we call the understanding and knowledge of businesses and business logic as 'forward-leaning'. If comparing the first fundamental principle to the 'foundation' of our legal work, we must 'lean forward' while firmly rooted in the foundation. Leaning forward is an attitude and also a manifestation of the capability of creating more value. To back the sound development of the company and to effectively balance innovation and risk, I think that is where the important value of the legal and compliance department is manifested," Zeng says.
The past year has also witnessed the rapid development of the Internet industry. Ma tells ALB that during the past year or two, the Internet entertainment industry has been dynamic, but full of competition, and meanwhile showing strong momentum in going overseas; and business models and product models in the industry have continued to innovate. These trends have been manifested in the sectors of online games and live streaming. Zhou says that that these sectors are gradually showing the development trends of high-quality, diversification and internationalization. Gaming companies pay more attention to the quality of games, endeavour to create high-quality game contents and explore new types of games, and practice the "going global" strategy while continuously developing new business formats. Chinese game products are gradually having a greater influence in the international market.
Regulations have intensifie as the industry has boomed. "At the regulatory level, many important new regulations have been introduced; at the same time, the regulation has been further intensified, with more efficient approaches and tools applied. To be specific in our industry, the changes in regulatory requirements and the legal environment are manifested in three aspects, namely, data compliance, intellectual property rights, and content compliance. For example, the Civil Code, the Personal Information Protection Law (Draft), and the Data Security Law have been promulgated or come into effect, the Copyright Law, the Patent Law, and the Minors Protection Law are undergoing major revisions, and several competent authorities have carried out intensive special inspection on the collection of personal information by apps. All of these put forward higher requirements for the internet entertainment industry in terms of content production, distribution, operation and internal compliance management, requiring us to quickly interpret and adopt corresponding compliance response measures," Ma says.
In this context, one of the big challenges facing legal teams is how to help companies maintain their market competitive edges under the premise of compliance. In Zhou's view, "compliance is of beneficial importance to business. At NetEase Games, the legal team provides a strong guarantee for the company from the compliance and legal perspectives, helping the company to realize the business objectives and navigating the compliance operations of new projects. Furthermore, the company's legal team with both business and compliance thinking can be deeply involved in the formulation of relevant industry policies, regulations and standards, thereby promoting legislative and judicial progress from a practical perspective."
Ma agrees with Zhou and says: "Companies' business activities must be carried out in line with legal and regulatory requirements, so as to create a business environment of fairness and good faith. This is the bottom line –– companies cannot involve what is prohibited by law. But in the era featured faster development of digital economy, technologies, products, and business models, compliance and legal requirements sometimes are vague or lag behind. In such cases, we'd comprehensively evaluate legal risks from multiple perspectives such as product research and development, business goals, and public interests, to find the risk boundaries, thereby ensuring the compliant operation of businesses, and meanwhile promoting the development of the business. At the same time, we continue to pay attention to changes in policies and regulations to redefine the risk boundaries in a timely manner."
INNOVATIVE STEPS
The general counsel have all taken innovative steps to respond to challenges in the past year. "Our team has adopted innovative technical means to respond to the challenges," Zhang of Haier Group says. "Given that Haier is multinational corporate, we continue to upgrade our global legal risk digital management platform to meet the needs the compliance work in the era of big data, and deepen the integration of law + technology application and business objectives; and we have adopted modularized, productized, and digitalized systems for contract management, company management, compliance management, internal and external lawyer management, and case resource management. In this way, those systems can be flexibly assembled and seamlessly connected with the entire business and financial systems, so as to break down barriers to information sharing, and improve the efficiency of smart management of business risks. In addition, we set up the business law cloud which includes the data on practical experiences of the legal department, as well as laws and regulations around the world and the related cases, enabling us to carry out timely and efficient analysis of different cases based on the up-to-date and comprehensive data, and form guiding opinions on legal risks. On the basis of the business law cloud, we implement the modularized management system to handle contracts and company-related matters. We also use the system's 'grabbing orders' function and remuneration function to improve the work efficiency of the legal team members. Furthermore, with the centralized processing and archiving functions of these systems, we deal with the legal work requiring profound expertise in a centralized way, realize legal information sharing, and regularly produce legal evaluation reports, thereby supporting the company in achieving business strategic goals, and meanwhile maximizing the business value of legal services," Zhang continues.
Perfect World's legal team also uses innovative technical means to improve work efficiency. Ma tells ALB that aiming to use big data analysis to empower the company's business, her team has set up four digital legal service and management systems tailored to the characteristics of the cultural businesses, namely, the contract review and data analysis system, the infringement clues and litigation case management system, the infringement monitoring system, and the trademark search and review system, to provide visual and forward-looking analysis tools for the company-wide contract review, intellectual property protection and informed decision-making for businesses.
Among the said four major systems, "the contract review and data analysis system has excellent contract management functions, helping us significantly improve the contract review efficiency; at the same time, it can quickly identify operational risks and trends by digging into the big data to provide objective, visual, and quantifiable support basis for management's decision-making, and directly help business lines improve the operation management and risk control capabilities," Ma points out.
In addition, the main line of business of Perfect World is a typical Internet 2C business, with fast product iterations and many cutting-edge innovations, the contract review alone is no longer sufficient to deal with increasingly complex compliance risks. Considering that, Ma innovatively proposes to train the product-manager kind of legal counsels. "Our legal team adjusts its positioning quickly – in line with the characteristics of the VUCA (volatile，uncertain，complex，ambiguous) era at a macro level, and taking into account every detail of Internet product development and operation at a micro level – transforming traditional legal counsels from contract review specialists to 'product managers who see things also from legal perspectives', and meanwhile know well every detail of products. As the product-manager kind of legal counsels, we develop one-stop, full-cycle and flexible compliance solutions for products from project establishment to online operation from dual perspectives of user experience and regulatory compliance," Ma explains.
Guided by that ideology, Perfect World's legal team members are proactively involved in each project from the very beginning to gain comprehensive knowledge of the business model, R&D operation, and market layout, so as to provide all-round supports from market access, competitive product research, online protocol development, intellectual property protection, and day-to-day operations, and to ensure that the supports keep pace with the product iteration. By digging into the ins and outs of a product, the legal team reviews the functional design, interaction interface, page jumping logic, text identification, customer service process, and response to customers from the dual perspective of "user's perception + regulatory compliance".
"Now, the legal department has become the 'checkpoint' in the product development, and the product-manager kind of legal counsels have been truly balancing well business demands and compliance requirements in effective collaboration with the business departments," Ma says.
The legal team of Netease Games have dealt with a number of cases with ground-breaking significance in online gaming industry. Zhou tells ALB that in the process of IP rights protection, their legal team independently completed the live broadcast dispute case of Fantasy Westward Journey, which was regarded as the first case of infringement of live broadcast of online games in China. This case pointed out the direction for the standardization of China's live broadcast in this industry. In addition, they also completed a series of anti-monopoly cases in Fantasy Westward Journey II. As the first game monopoly dispute case in China, this case is of great significance for clarifying industrial rules and giving guides to regulation of the development of online gaming and live broadcasting.
“We hope that through these cases, judiciary can give clear judgment to emerging legal issues in our industry, which can help set up some rules and promote a more healthy and orderly development in gaming industry,” Zhou says.
FUTURE PROSPECTS
The interviewed GCs all tell us that they have observed the trend of stricter regulation in their respective industries. Zhou believes that from the policy perspective, as the online game industry has been growing rapidly, the government authorities have tightened the overall regulation of game contents, the industry legislation has been gradually perfected, and the judicial organs have been issuing measures to address game-related legal issues. It is foreseeable that the online game industry will gradually see a healthy, orderly and prosperous development trend with the intensified industry regulation and protection policies.
In this context, Zhou will lead the legal team to continue to conduct industry research, proactively participate in the formulation of policies, regulations and standards related to online games, live-streaming, and e-sports, and promote legislative and judicial progress, thereby promoting the healthy and sustainable development of the company and the industry. Zhou also plans to train her team to be more resilient, gain better insight of the company's business goals and business models, perceptively identify risks and promptly propose solutions that meet business needs. Furthermore, the legal team will continue to introduce legal talents with international background and expertise in related areas to give robust support to the global distribution of products, and advancement of the company's investment layout and globalization strategy.
Ma observes that the digital economy boom will bring more unknown opportunities, while the rapidly changing market environment has become more unpredictable and uncertain. As the government intensifies data protection and content regulation, more detailed regulations may be introduced with regard to new issues such as virtual currency, virtual property, and blockchain.
"To cope with these coming changes, I hope that my team stay curious about new things, like to study and be able to learn continuously. At the same time, they should continue to polish their skill sets, and keep up-to-date to the legislation and judicial precedents in the related areas and industries at home and abroad," she says.
Zhang highlights the organic combination of technology and talent intelligence. First, they would start from the platform and system construction, which is to build a compliant legal ecological cloud drawing on the strength of digitalization and technology. Second is about the development and positioning of the team members. The legal team members will receive training on knowledge structure, helping them to build a law-based knowledge system with extension into technology, finance, investment and emerging industries. Thirdly, a mechanism with the orientation of maximizing the value of individuals will be built, enabling the legal team and the business teams to aim at the same goals and formulate rules together. And finally, efforts will be made to build the legal team into a team with strong forward-looking capabilities and insightful perspectives, and establish a legal digital industry think tank to be up-to-date to compliance-related governance legislation, and keep abreast of the industry trends.
Zeng observes that the frequent adjustments to the regulatory policies for the medical insurance system show that the government is determined to reform the system. Driven by favourable policies, the industry and the companies' businesses prosper, and many innovative businesses, models, and products have emerged, but they are all in the stage of "crossing the river by feeling the stones". Given that, the legal team of Ping An Medical and Healthcare will need to continue exploring to perfect rules, or sometimes even to create rules, to train forward-looking capabilities in legal and compliance work, and to promote team growth through long-term continuous practice and training, so that the team would be able to stay resilient in all circumstances.
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