Bio

Catherine focuses her practice on merger and acquisition, private equity, foreign direct investment and data protection. In the area of merger and acquisition, Catherine has extensive experience advising on cross-border and domestic M&A transactions, joint ventures, group restructuring and spinning off of existing investments projects across a wide range of industries in China. Besides traditional industries such as auto, real estate and manufacturing, she is also experienced with M&A transactions in cutting-edge high technology industries such as AI, big data and autonomous driving. Catherine is fully bilingual. She has served as the leading counsel for a number of complicated cross-border M&A transactions by foreign investors and was instrumental in their structuring, negotiation and implementation. Her clients in this area include global investment and sovereign wealth funds, Fortune 500 and medium-sized multinational and Chinese companies. Catherine has a particular expertise with corporate, regulatory and compliance matters in the automotive industry. She has represented notable players in the automotive industry including auto OEMs and parts suppliers on a wide variety of corporate and compliance matters with regard to autonomous driving, car sharing, telematics and connected car related projects and M&A transactions. She often speaks on regulatory development in China’s auto industry at auto conferences and seminars and has written various articles in this area. In addition, Catherine is a leading lawyer in the area of hotel management, specialising in the drafting and negotiation of management agreements and franchise agreements for hotels, resorts and serviced apartments, advising on the legal matters of leasing, acquisition, disposition and development of hotels, offices and other mixed-use commercial real estate projects. Catherine has advised clients on many market leading transactions in this area, including one of the largest resort investment projects in China Atlantis Resort Sanya, the development of a premier mixed-use commercial complex real estate project in Beijing, and the largest hotel management transaction in China by the number of rooms. 2018 – Partner of Commerce and Finance Law Offices. Prior to joining Commerce & Finance Law Offices as a partner, Catherine was a partner of another well-known Chinese law firm, and had extensive practice experience with both international and Chinese law firms.