From November to December 2018, a Dentons Shanghai team led by senior partner Huang Kaijun was retained by a Sino-US joint venture (the "Company") to provide full scope legal assistance on its internal investigation for anti-corruption and integrity issues, as well as the subsequent rectification work. Their service was highly appreciated by the client.

Since the related incidents in this matter involved different jurisdictions, nationalities and business environments, the legal team needed to consider the following factors when carrying out the compliance investigation:

First of all, the incidents involved legal subjects (such as Chinese legal persons, Hong Kong legal persons and American legal persons) that apply different jurisdictions; and also included natural persons from different business backgrounds (such as Chinese citizens, US citizens and Canadian citizens). Therefore, in order to ensure the validity of the investigation report, the team needed to consider the application of laws when providing legal opinions;

Secondly, from the perspective of the laws, regulations and corporate rules involved in the incidents, the team also needed to consider the following:

Firstly, the team needed to take criminal law, administrative law and civil law into account, and analyze whether the incidents violated the relevant provisions of the laws and regulations by examining the constituent elements of the illegal behaviors/irregularities that may be involved;

Secondly, in terms of the responsibilities of the relevant personnel, the team needed to judge whether there were any violations of relevant laws and regulations, or corporate rules and labor contracts, and what kind of responsibility should be undertaken based on the mandates of different personnel;

Lastly, in order to ensure the validity of the investigation work and the legal compliance of the investigation procedures, the team needed to consider various regulations on how lawyers should carry out compliance investigations, such as the relevant laws and regulations, operational guidelines and other applicable regulatory documents.

In addition, our lawyers also provided targeted commendations for the follow-up management of the Company from the perspective of risk prevention and control.

Currently, Sino-US trade, and cross-border investment and cooperation are becoming more frequent. If the economic entities from different business backgrounds want to maintain long-term cooperation and mutual trust, they need to attach great importance to anti-commercial bribery and integrity issues in daily interactions with clients. From the company management team to the employees, all people need to grasp the bottom lines set by relevant laws and regulations, understand and respect the differences in business habits of various countries, and establish, improve and implement the relevant integrity policies. As for lawyers, when providing legal services for clients, they should remain highly sensitive to such problems in order to provide the clients with comprehensive corporate risk management and control.