中国新经济行业如今有着令世界其他国家羡慕的创新速度和不断破土而出的尖端企业。今年入选榜单的团队不仅在法律合规方面为这些企业提供支持，还通过战略建议为其导航前进的道路。
今年上榜的新经济法务团队平均组建年限大约5.6年，平均人数为31.7人。年轻而灵巧的法务团队锐意进取，在当今中国新经济及其监管环境双双日新月异的快节奏发展进程中为企业指明长期稳健发展的方向。部分上榜团队接受了ALB的采访，在细数团队亮眼业绩的同时，他们还分享了对于当今中国新经济领域监管趋严这一现象的反思和应对。
精英团队
团队成员过硬的资质和妥善的模块化布局是这几家受访团队的共同点。此外，各个团队还针对新经济企业的特点，挖掘和培养了与企业发展路径高度契合的特质。智能运动平台Keep的开发公司——北京卡路里信息技术有限公司目前有着一支包含10位成员的法务团队。法务总监梁敏向ALB介绍到，团队规模虽小，但每个人都有独当一面的能力：“横向细分了综合法务、知识产权、投融资、诉讼和争议解决等模块；在纵向又有法务BP来对应每条业务线的日常业务，可以及时了解业务，提前帮助业务布局规划、规避风险。”
此外，梁敏还不无骄傲地表示，这支小而精的团队在工作中处处体现着“开放包容、和谐高效、持续学习”的品质，与新经济企业的发展需要不谋而合。她说：“新经济企业发展迅速，又会伴随着很多新业务、新模式和新技术不断产生，对于法务来说就要有很强的敏感性和前瞻性，快速的学习和自我更新迭代的能力，要及时地看到法律法规的变化，对应到实际业务并可以灵活落地。同时，在这种快速发展的时代下，也必须要联合外部力量一起才能更好的规避风险，比如同行之间的业务学习交流、外部律所的专业合作等。”
数字广东网络建设有限公司也有着一支由10人组成的法务团队。他们的平均工龄超过八年，曾在知名企业和律师事务所从事法务及管理工作。作为这支团队的领导者，数字广东副总经理、总法律顾问李哲坦言，数字政府改革建设是一项创新工程，同时也是中国新经济的重要新分领域，而数字广东公司作为数字政府建设运营中心，在发展过程中既面临着传统的法律问题，例如公司治理、知识产权管理等，也会遇到诸多新型法律问题，例如“政企合作、管运分离”模式下的政企合作边界问题、新型基础设施建设模式问题、政务服务产品合规问题等。
在此背景下，数字广东法务团队多元化的工作背景和极强的创新意识与能力发挥了巨大的作用。李哲说：“法务团队成员来自互联网行业、基础通信行业、设备厂商等头部企业，实操经验丰富，各有所长，互融互补，能有效应对数字政府改革建设中遇到的传统法律问题；另一方面，成员始终能保持创新意识和创新思维，敏锐洞察行业领域的前沿问题，提前对数字政府改革建设领域的新型法律问题进行研究，想在业务和产品前面，输出相应的理论研究成果和合规解决方案，为业务和产品赋能。”
富途控股有限公司法务部组建于2018年，由十多位法务人员组成。法务总监于千告诉ALB，这十多位团队成员分为综合法务组及知识产权组，负责整个集团的法务工作，包括综合法律事务、支持金融合规监管、投融资、牌照申请、知识产权及争议解决等。
作为一家领先的数字化金融科技公司，富途不仅具备新经济企业高速发展、注重创新的特点，还十分注重国际化战略布局与规划，因此，富途法务团队成员知识面广、学习能力强，在熟悉业务、了解商业本质的同时还能够应对来自多法域的挑战，他们中大多数具有海外留学和工作背景，为富途大量的涉外业务提供了强有力地法律合规支持。
猿辅导在线教育的猿力法务团队共有11人，除总监外，有三名主要负责人，分管合同及争议解决、劳动雇佣和知识产权。在法务总监贾峥看来，这是一支人人自带“优秀基因”的团队，即不仅具备优秀的法律素养，还有着专业、沟通能力强、渴望成长的特质。
“在猿辅导在线教育这样的互联网公司，管理扁平，决策效率很高，授权相对勇敢，它的灵活性和不确定性是一体两面的。因此，当新的业务模式、管理模式、交易模式和对外合作方式出现时，法务需要快速理解并识别出风险，有时要给予业务部门信心全力支持，有时却要果断提出风险浇灭不切实际的幻想。法务的角色不只是提供专业建议，有时候也需要参与决策。这就要求我们对业务的了解足够深入，同时跟业务部门之间的沟通分寸感要拿捏得非常合适，不能推卸责任也不能‘手’伸得太长。”贾峥说。
不断创新
新经济的关键字是“新”，即业务、技术、模式连续不断地推陈出新。现已走入千家万户的Keep就是很好的例子：突破了传统运动健身枯燥的特性及对于场所的限制，为用户提供了涵盖日常吃、穿、用、练的一揽子健身解决方案，形成了以家庭运动场景下的闭环。
而创新的成果往往需要法务部门的保驾护航才能走向可持续发展的道路。梁敏告诉ALB，Keep法务部与产品和业务部门一直保持着紧密的沟通，“法务团队从产品立项就开始跟进，通过大量审慎性研究，协助公司业务部门完成新型商业模式法律构架的搭建、知识产权保护、合同文本的制定，以及风险规避应对机制的设计。” 三年来，Keep法务团队已经累计申请了约400项专利，国内外超700个商标，同时也对各大平台进行侵权监控，对公司创新产品和技术提供了较完善的保护。
除了协助公司进行创新，Keep法务团队也一直积极探索更智能的法务工作方式。“目前，我们已经引入了电子合同系统、专利和商标管理系统，提高了工作效率，也为公司节约了成本。未来还会继续调研AI合同审核系统和法务综合管理系统，尽量实现法务工作的智能化和电子化，节约简单人力和能源成本。”梁敏说。
回顾过去的一年，李哲表示，数字政府作为数字中国的重要组成部分，突显出政策新、模式新、技术新的特点。在此背景下，数字广东度过了极不平凡、充满变革与创新的一年：粤省事、粤商通、粤政易等政务服务平台创下用户数量新高；推出了普惠金融、政务数据授权使用等新应用，并在新冠肺炎疫情防控期间率先在全国推出健康防疫核验平台，破解老年人“数字鸿沟”；积极探索数字政府未来发展新方向，如省域治理“一网统管”、智慧监管、数据要素市场化配置改革等，为未来的持续发展创造新蓝海。
为了保护并促进这样的进程，数字广东法务团队一方面夯实理论研究，深入研究数字政府改革建设中面临的法律问题，重点对政企合作、数据开发利用、个人信息保护等热点领域进行前瞻研究，为新产品、新服务提供理论支持；另一方面高度融入研发进程，通过对知识产权和产品合规双管齐下，与技术趋势保持紧密的联结，在开发阶段提供法律合规支撑。此外，法务团队还对管理工具进行创新，针对新模式、新问题、新风险，结合业务拟定审核清单、法律风险地图、合同范本、操作指引等，并在实践中不断迭代优化，高效、准确支撑公司快速发展。
监管“风暴”
新经济的行业发展与监管发展往往是相伴相随的。近年来，中国新经济监管出现了趋严的走势，甚至在部分新经济领域中掀起了一小股监管“风暴”。以教育行业为例，贾峥表示，在线教育行业在过去一年经历了高速发展后的强力政策监管，“双减政策”的落地让企业不得不急刹车，国家对企业的合规要求也达到了空前额高度，主体资格、经营模式、服务模式、收费方式、数据合规、用户信息保护都需要纳入监管范畴。
尽管这样的监管变化在短期内给不少教育企业带来了挑战，但在贾峥看来，这样的变化存在其必要性：“越是高速发展的行业竞争越激烈，头部企业希望能够快速扩张，从而拉开竞争差距，在缺少技术壁垒或者其他核心竞争力的情况下，确实容易滋生垄断和不正当竞争。国家适时地对一些过度资本化扩张的行业和企业加以监管，可以倒逼行业和企业进行更理性的思考。”
这样的高格局视角也让猿力法务团队看到了蕴藏在挑战之中的机遇：法务团队借此契机为企业各业务线进行全面的“体检”，保证合规经营。同时，法务团队还支撑着企业探索新的转型方向，加快新赛道的辨认与选择。
“在这样的特殊时期，法务团队越主动，‘出圈’的力度越大，对政策变化、行业趋势、市场动向理解得越迅速，对企业的转型就能提供越大的支持。”贾峥说。
除了教育行业的监管加强，国家在信息保护和数据安全方面也密集地出台了多项法规、指引及标准，对包括金融科技在内的多个新经济领域提出了更高的合规要求。作为专注于为用户提供覆盖多个市场的全数字化在线券商服务，富途法务团队迅速做出响应，结合集团的业务情况优化了产品服务协议及隐私政策，还组建了专门的数据合规安全小组，牵头负责集团项下的数据合规安全工作。于千向ALB介绍道：“我们根据境内外的法律监管动态，由数据合规安全小组牵头，主动发现问题、输出优化建议并监督优化措施执行，有序地推进集团数据合规安全工作的制度建设及操作规范。未来，我们在相关领域将继续保持拥抱监管和合法合规经营的发展理念，确保公司业务符合最新政策和法规的要求。”
展望未来
结合受访团队所分享的观点，与其说监管趋严，不如说监管变得更加细化、更加明晰，所增设的“条条框框”更像是为新经济企业未来发展指明了更加明确的轨道、勾勒出更加清楚的界线。随着 “自由野蛮生长”的时代落下帷幕，法务团队也对未来的工作规划有了更多把握。
梁敏表示，未来Keep法务团队会在整体合规排查、数据合规、知识产权保护和海外合规投入更多精力。“下一步我们会对整个公司业务做合规体检，进行全面评估，找到合规差距，并有针对性地补充和强化，努力实现合规在线化实时管理，将合规最终落实到业务。同时，我们也会为团队提供更多学习培训机会，不断提升团队的专业水平和综合能力。”
数字广东法务团队未来将继续学习与新技术及其在数字政府领域的运用相关的知识，同时还会强化研究数据资产化、数据开发利用、数据交易流通，以及数据信托、隐私计算等新模式、新技术运用所面临的法律问题，支撑公司在新领域开展新探索、新实践。此外，李哲还告诉ALB，在数字政府2.0时代到来之际，他们还将不断为政务领域的新产品提供创新的合规解决方案，更大程度地体现数字政府的温度。
于千对ALB表示，富途法务团队将持续优化和完善集团的法律合规体系，促进公司业务稳健合规发展。“我们将密切跟进法律法规的发展动态，积极学习和研究，并根据合规要求结合公司实际情况采取相应的合规措施。”
猿力法务团队将继续保持高标准的企业合规。“企业内合规的要求一旦提升起来，就必须保持下去，不能在‘风头’过去之后又被打回原样，这就要求法务团队要在机制层面去解决问题。在与外部监管、内部业务部门的交互过程中，要识别出哪些是企业的制度问题、哪些是管理问题、哪些是人的问题，把这些问题提升到和业务发展一样重要的决策层面去解决。” 贾峥对ALB说。
2021 ALB China Top 15 New Economy In-House Teams
China’s new economy is now the envy of the world, boasting cutting-edge companies that are constantly breaking ground with the speed and breadth of their innovations. This annual listing fetes the legal teams, that are not only providing support with regard to laws and regulations, but also helping them navigate the path forward through strategic advice.
With an average team experience of 5.6 years, and about 31 members in a team on average, the new economy in-house teams that made the list this year are young and agile, but also have a strong sense of entrepreneurship. In a continuous tightening regulatory environment, coupled with the rapid development of the new economy in China, these teams help their companies set the clear direction for long-term and robust development. ALB spoke with some of the winners to hear how they have made those remarkable achievements, as well as their reflections on and responses to the increasingly intensified regulation in China's new economy.
ELITE TEAMS
We noticed that the winners this year have a couple of things in common: strong competence and a well-arranged modularized layout. Meanwhile, each team explores and develops its own strengths in line with the development path of its company as well as the characteristics of new economy companies. "Horizontally, our team is divided into several modules (units), namely comprehensive legal affairs, intellectual property, investment and financing, litigation, and dispute resolution. Vertically, we have legal BPs (business partners) to take care of the day-to-day operation of each business line, stay updated on business, and help our business departments to make plans in advance and avoid risks," says Liang Min, legal director of Beijing Calorie Information Technology. Beijing Calorie Information Technology is the owner of KEEP, the leading fitness app in China. The ten-person legal team of KEEP is rather small in size, with each member playing a unique role.
"We have created an open, inclusive, harmonious, efficient and continuous learning environment" in our lean-and-mean team, which is highly compatible with the development needs of new economy companies, Liang says proudly. "The rapid development of new economy enterprises will continue to bring into being new business lines, new business forms and new technologies. As the legal team of a new economy company, we need to keep up with the new trends and build forward-looking capabilities, in addition to being quick learners and self-motivators. We keep abreast of new changes in laws and regulations to help our company adjust business accordingly and flexibly. Furthermore, against the backdrop of an era featuring rapid development, we must join hands with external partners by means of peer interactions and cooperation with external law firms, to better avoid risks," Liang adds.
The legal team of Digital Guangdong Network Construction (digitalgd.com.cn) also has ten people, who have more than eight years of work experience on average. They worked at well-known companies and law firms before joining Digital Guangdong. Li Zhe, deputy general manager and general counsel of Digital Guangdong, tells ALB that the digital government reform and construction is an innovative project, and also an important sub-sector of China's new economy. As the operation centre of digital government construction, Digital Guangdong is faced with traditional legal issues such as corporate governance and intellectual property management, as well as novel legal issues such as the government-enterprise cooperation boundary under the model of "government-enterprise cooperation and separation of administration and business operation,” the novel infrastructure construction models, and the compliance issues of government-related services and products.
In this context, the team members' diversified work backgrounds and their strong sense of innovation and capabilities have created for the team a powerful strength. The members of the legal team of Digital Guangdong "worked with leading companies in the Internet industry, basic communications industry or equipment manufacturing sector before joining our company. They have rich hands-on experiences and are experts in their respective areas, enabling the team to effectively solve traditional legal issues encountered in the process of digital government reform and construction. Meanwhile, with a strong sense of innovation and innovative thinking, as well as a keen insight into the cutting-edge issues in the industry, our team members foresee and study novel legal issues in the digital government reform and construction, and provide forward-thinking compliance solutions to support the development and management of our business and products," Li says.
Established in 2018, the legal department of Futu Holdings consists of more than a dozen legal personnel. Legal director Yu Qian tells ALB that the legal department is divided into two teams, comprehensive legal team and intellectual property team, and takes care of the legal work of the entire group, including comprehensive legal affairs, support for financial compliance supervision, investment and financing, license application, intellectual property and dispute resolution.
As a leading digital fintech company, Futu has the characteristics of new economy enterprises, which are rapid growth and innovation orientation. Moreover, Futu gives much weight to international strategic layout and planning. Given that, the legal team members of Futu are well-informed and quick learners; and they know the business and are able to meet challenges involving multiple jurisdictions. Most of them have experience of studying and working abroad, enabling them to give strong legal compliance support for Futu in dealing with foreign-related businesses.
There are 11 people in the legal team of Beijing Yuanli Education Science and Technology, the developer of the leading online education platform Yuanfudao. The legal team has three persons in charge in addition to the GC, respectively responsible for the management of contracts and dispute resolution, labour and employment, and intellectual property. Legal director Jia Zheng says that it is a team consisting of people with "excellent genes" – they have profound legal expertise, strong communication skills, and a desire to grow continuously.
"As an Internet company, Yuanfudao adopts a simple and flat management structure, is efficient in making decisions, and is bold in the authoriSation; therefore, flexibility and uncertainty exist at the same time in the company. In this regard, the legal team needs to keep up with the flexibility in the business, and meanwhile be alert to the uncertainties. When there are new business forms, new management models, new transaction models, and new external cooperation approaches, the legal team must quickly gain understanding and identify risks. Based on our research and analysis results, we would fully support the business departments in trying out new ideas in some projects; but in some other cases – when foreseeing risks – we'd definitely press the brakes and ask the business departments to stop. We believe that the legal department's job is not limited to giving legal advice; we might as well participate in the decision-making process. To play a role in decision making appropriately, we must know the business well enough and meanwhile communicate with the business departments in a proper way, which means that we don't shirk the responsibilities, and we can't overreach or cross the boundary, either," Jia says.
INNOVATION
The keyword of the new economy is "new,” which means that business, technology, and model continue to innovate. KEEP, China's most popular fitness app, is a very good example in this regard. It helps people to get in some exercise no matter where they are, and meanwhile, it offers a package of fitness solutions that cover healthy diet advice, workout plans, guided routines, etc. In a nutshell, with KEEP, people can enjoy exercising at home. The legal department plays a vital role in ensuring the sustainable development of innovation achievements. KEEP's legal department and product and business departments have kept close communication with each other "since the establishment of project. By doing many prudential studies, we help the business department with the establishment of the legal framework for the new business model, the protection of intellectual property rights, and the preparation of contracts, as well as the design of risk aversion and response mechanisms," Liang tells ALB. In the past three years, KEEP's legal team has filed about 400 patents and more than 700 trademarks at home and abroad. At the same time, it also monitors major platforms for possible infringements, effectively protecting the company's innovative products and technologies.
In addition to assisting the company in innovation, KEEP's legal team has also been actively exploring smarter legal work approaches. "So far, we've introduced an electronic contract system and a patent and trademark management system, which help us greatly improve work efficiency and meanwhile help the company save costs. We plan to introduce some other smart legal work tools, including an AI contract review system and a comprehensive legal management system, to try our best to digitalize and automate the legal work, so as to save labour cost on simple work and save energy cost as well," Liang says.
Looking back on the past year, digital government, an important part of digital China, has manifested the characteristics of new policies, new models, and new technologies, Li of Digital Guangdong says. In this context, Digital Guangdong has had an extraordinary year of transformation and innovation: the number of users of government service platforms such as Guangdong Provincial Affairs (粤省事), Doing Business in Guangdong (粤商通) and Guangdong Government Governance (粤政易) saw a new high; it also launched new apps related to inclusive financial services and authorized use of government data, and took the lead in launching the first health and epidemic control verification platform in China during the COVID-19 pandemic, and filled the "digital gap" for the elderly. Furthermore, Digital Guangdong actively explores new directions for the future development of digital government, such as province-wide governance platform "one-network unified administration" (一网统管), smart regulation, and market-oriented allocation and reform of data elements, so as to create a new blue ocean for the sustainable development in the future.
In order to promote and protect this innovation process, on the one hand, Digital Guangdong's legal team consolidates theoretical researches by conducting in-depth research on the legal issues faced in the reform and construction of digital government, with the focus on forward-looking research on hot areas such as government-enterprise cooperation, data development and utilization, and personal information protection, so as to provide theoretical support for the development of new products and services. On the other hand, the team is actively involved in the (product and service) research and development process, and in line with technological trends, provides legal compliance support in the R&D stage from the aspects of intellectual property protection and product compliance. The team also upgrades management tools, prepares review checklists, legal risk maps, contract templates, and operation guidelines to tackle new models, new problems, and new risks, and makes optimizations in light of actual conditions, to efficiently and accurately support the rapid growth of the company.
REGULATORY STORM
All in all, all industries develop within the framework of government regulation; it is the same for the new economy. In recent years, while China's regulatory environment is becoming more and more intensified, some areas of the new economy have seen a regulatory storm. The online education industry has experienced intensified policy regulation last year after years of high growth, Jia says. The "double reduction policy" has forced companies to slam the brakes, and the State sets unprecedented high compliance requirements for companies, and their subject qualifications, business models, service models, charging methods, data compliance, and user information protection are all included in the scope of regulation.
Although those regulatory changes have brought challenges to many education companies in the short term, in Jia's view, such changes are necessary. "The more rapidly industries develop, the more intense the competition is. The leading companies want to expand quickly to outrun their competitors. In the absence of technical barriers or other core competitive elements, it is easy to breed monopoly and unfair competition. I believe that by timely regulating some over-capitalized industries and enterprises, the State is helping those industries and companies to develop in a more rational way," Jia says.
This far-sighted view allows the legal team of Beijing Yuanli to find opportunities in the challenges. The team takes this opportunity to check comprehensively all business lines of the company to ensure compliance operations. Meanwhile, the team supports the company in exploring new transformation directions and speeding up the identification and selection of new development paths.
"In this special time period, the legal team could better support the transformation of the company if we take the initiative to play a more active role in other areas than the legal profession and take up more responsibilities, and meanwhile quickly understand the policy changes, industry trends and market trends," Jia says.
In addition to the regulatory tightening in the education industry, China has also promulgated a number of rules, guidelines and standards to strengthen information protection and data security, setting higher compliance requirements for many new economy sectors, including fintech. Futu, an advanced technology company transforming the investing experience by offering a fully digitized brokerage and wealth management platform, responded to the regulatory developments quickly. It updated the product service agreements and privacy policies based on the business conditions of the whole group, and established a special team to be responsible for the data compliance and security work across the group. "In light of the legal and regulatory trends home and abroad, the special team for data compliance and security work takes the lead to proactively identify problems, offers suggestions on optimization, and supervises the implementation of optimization measures, to orderly promote the group's data compliance and security work in terms of system construction and operation norms. In the future, we will continue to embrace regulation and the development concept of legal and compliance operations to ensure that the company's business meets the requirements of the most up-to-date policies and regulations," Yu tells ALB.
LOOKING TO THE FUTURE
All the interviewed teams see the regulatory developments as more of setting more detailed and clearer requirements than tightening regulation. The newly promulgated "rules and regulations" are more of guidelines pointing out clearer development paths and setting clearer boundaries for the future development of new economy companies. As the era of "free and barbaric growth" is coming to an end, legal teams are poised to make their future plans.
KEEP's legal team will invest more energy in overall compliance investigation, data compliance, intellectual property protection and overseas compliance. "In the next step, we'll do compliance checks on all the business lines of the company, and conduct compliance assessments comprehensively to identify compliance gaps, and then implement targeted supplementary and intensified measures, so as to realize online and real-time compliance management, and ensure compliance business operations. Meanwhile, we'll offer our team members more learning and training opportunities to improve the professional level and comprehensive competency of the whole team," Liang says.
The legal team of Digital Guangdong will continue to learn the knowledge related to new technologies and their application in the field of digital government. Meanwhile, they will invest more in the research on legal issues facing the application of novel models and technologies such as data capitalization, data development and utilization, data transaction and circulation, and data trust and privacy computing, and support the company to explore and practice in new fields. As the digital government 2.0 era is coming, they will continue to provide innovative compliance solutions to manifest the people-oriented nature of digital government to a greater extent, Li tells ALB.
Futu's legal team will continue to optimize and perfect the group's legal compliance system to promote the robust and compliant development of the business lines. "We'll keep abreast of the updates and changes in laws and regulations, and actively study to take corresponding compliance measures according to compliance requirements and in light of the actual situation of our company," Yu says.
The legal team of Beijing Yuanli will continue to maintain high standards of corporate compliance. "Once the internal compliance requirements of the company have been raised to a higher standard, we need to stick to that standard, instead of waiting for the regulatory storm to come to an end and then falling back to where we were. Therefore, we need to solve problems at the mechanism level. When interacting with regulatory authorities and internal business departments, we need to identify what are corporate system problems, what are management problems, and what are people's problems, and then solve these problems together with decision-making and business development related issues," says Jia.
THE LIST
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BeiGene APAC Legal Team Legal department of Beijing Calorie Information & Technology Co., Ltd. Asia Legal Services of Cognex Legal & Compliance of CVTE Legal & Audit Department of Digital Guangdong Network Constructions Co. Ltd. Legal Department of Futu Holdings Limited Global Legal Department of Haier Smart Home Co., LTD. Legal Affairs Department of Huizhou Desay SV Automotive Co., Ltd. Kuaishou Legal Department NIO Legal Department We Doctor Legal & Intellectual Property Team WeWork China Legal & Compliance Team Legal Department of Xiaomi Corporation Legal YUAN Zhihu Legal Department |
To contact the editorial team, please email ALBEditor@thomsonreuters.com.
