Summary

Li Chen is currently a director of Dentons China Region, the head of the Dispute Resolution practice group of Dentons Shanghai, a master mentor at East China University of Political Science and Law, and an arbitrator at both Shanghai Arbitration Commission and Hangzhou Arbitration Commission. He has practiced law for nearly 20 years, mainly specializing in dispute resolution in the fields of real estate and financial and commercial investment and financing. He has handled a large number of major, difficult and complex dispute resolution cases, and helped clients to maximize their legitimate rights and interests through arbitration, litigation, court enforcement, negotiation and mediation.

Cases he has handled include: representing an urban investment and development company in RMB 5 billion serial disputes over primary land co-development; RMB 3 billion+ disputes over stock-pledged repurchases; representing trust companies in RMB 2.8 billion disputes over financial loan contracts; representing a SOE in  RMB 2.6 billion+ serial financing trade disputes; representing a SOE in RMB 1.5 billion serial investment and financing disputes; a RMB 1 billion ABS redemption dispute; a RMB 850 million dispute over the transfer of shares in a partnership; a RMB 300 million dispute over the exit of a SOE from a corporate fund; China’s first case over the redemption of ultra-short-term financing bills; several compensation disputes involving the fiduciary duty of fund managers; several PE fund VAM liability disputes; representing a number of banks in disposing of their non-performing assets with a total value of over RMB 10 billion; a dispute over environmental pollution liability in the "Changzhou soil pollution case".

Representative Projects and Cases

RMB 3 billion+ disputes over confirmation of rights and enforcement in stock-pledged repurchase lawsuits

Since 2018, Li Chen and his team have handled disputes over confirmation of rights and enforcement in a number of stock-pledged repurchase lawsuits, involving the stock of [NetPosa (300367), Ji Yao Holdings (300108), Hangzhou Gaoxin (300478), Xiwang Food (000639), Kingnet (002517), Red Sun (000525), Yu Diamond (300064), and Huayu Mining (601020)]. He and his team have provided a package of legal services to these clients by comprehensively using relevant litigation and non-litigation procedures and means, including but not limited to: suing, effective property preservation, and non-litigation negotiations. Through a combination of non-litigation and litigation means, he and his team have assisted some clients in fully recovering their claims.

RMB 3 billion disputes involving trust loans
He has represented a number of trust companies in trust loan disputes involving real estate projects. Although these cases arose from disputes over financial loan contracts, but these trust loans were mostly used for the development and construction of real estate projects, how to ensure that after the claims were confirmed, these trust companies could control these real estate projects through legal means and then recover their claims, which is one of the difficulties in handling these cases. Through a comprehensive combination of experience in handling cases involving financial claims and cases involving real estate projects, while completing the judicial confirmation of claims for these clients, he locked valid assets for debt repayment through various legal means, and in the later stage, through the comprehensive use of litigation and non-litigation negotiation methods, helped these clients to maximize their legitimate rights and interests and valid commercial interests.

Representing a SOE in RMB 2.6 billion+ serial disputes over financing trade  
This case involves dozens of companies, involving a financing trade business of over ten years and a total amount of more than RMB 2.6 billion. How to comprehensively use legal knowledge and legal means on the basis of sorting out a large number of evidence materials in the trade links to recover the claims for the SOE is one of the difficulties in handling this case. In representing the case, he convinced the court into making judicial judgments on the legal relationship between and the rights and obligations of all parties in line with the legal basis and business background and ensured the recovery of state-owned assets to the fullest extent.

Representing a SOE in RMB 1.5 billion serieal investment and financing disputes 
Li Chen represented a SOE in a series of investment and financing disputes involving a total disputed amount of more than RMB 1.5 billion caused by the introduction of strategic investors. The case involved multi-level courts (including the Supreme Court and relevant provincial high courts) in Anhui, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Beijing. The causes of action in the case involved disputes over liability for damage to corporate interests, liability for damage to shareholders’ interests, equity transfer, shareholder qualification confirmation, shareholders’ right to know, etc. under the Company Law. As lead counsel, Li Chen had developed an overall solution consisting of litigation and non-litigation means from the outset of the case and helped the client to receive effective judgments in favor of the client in this series of disputes and to finally resolve these disputes through non-litigation negotiations, effectively safeguarding the rights and interests of the client and ensuring that state-owned assets were not lost.

RMB 1 billion dispute over ABS redemption
From June 2018 to June 2019, Meijite's ABS defaulted on redemption, involving an amount exceeding RMB 1 billion. The ABS manager should, on behalf of the holders, file a lawsuit against the fundraiser, operator, guarantor and other ABS parties with a redemption obligation. Representing the manager, Li Chen conducted an in-depth analysis of the credit enhancement measures and complex legal relationships involved in this case, such as liquidity support and commitment to make up shortfalls, that were not yet clearly defined by law. In order to maximize the interests of investors, in addition to representing the litigation case, he also provided assistance to the client from other aspects in out-of-court work such as verification of underlying assets, support for holders' meetings, and liaison with investors to revitalize the projects, which has been highly recognized by both the manager and the ABS holders.

RMB 1 billion+ dispute over the redemption of Shanshui Cement's ultra-short-term financing bills 
In 2016, Li Chen and his team sued Shandong Shanshui Cement Group Limited over a bond redemption dispute on behalf of different types of products managed by a number of fund companies. The case involved the interests of many investors such as public funds, national social security funds, enterprise annuities and asset management plans, involving a disputed amount of more than RMB 1 billion. This is China’s first lawsuit arising from a breach of contract governing the ultra-short-term financing bills.

Representing an urban investment and development company in a RMB 500 million primary land co-development project 
This case arose from a primary land co-development dispute. In the process of jointly developing a national-level theme town by the client's project company and a government, due to major adjustments in national policies, the government proposed to cease the cooperation and refused to pay the cost that the project company had already invested. Therefore, the client filed a lawsuit in a provincial high court to defend its rights. Because of the lack of contracts for primary land development, the client was faced with the following difficulties: difficulty in filing a case, difficulty in obtaining evidence because there were a large number of government documents involved in the co-development, and difficulty in legal definition of the co-development relationship between the project company and the government. Therefore, the provincial high court ruled that the client lost the lawsuit. Before the court of second instance, with his solid legal expertise and his ability to analyze and judge evidence in simple language, Li Chen started from the factual contractual relationship between the project company and the government, and combined with the project development evidence, comprehensively convinced the Supreme Court into accepting the project company’s performance of the land co-development agreement, thus achieving the goal of convincing the Supreme Court into completely reversing the earlier judgement.

RMB 300 million dispute over the exit of a SOE from a corporate fund 
In this case, a SOE invested in a corporate fund whose income, after more than ten years of operation, was as high as 10 times or more. A dispute arose between the parties over the exit from the fund. According to Chinese laws, the exit of a shareholder from a company needs to be made as expressly stipulated in its articles of association or with the consent of the other shareholder(s), which caused great obstacles to the exit and realization of income of the SOE. On one hand, Li Chen relied on the agreement of the parties to exit from the fund and handled this case as a contract dispute, requiring the fund to bear the liability for breach of contract, and thus cleverly avoided the exit issue; on the other hand, for the calculation of the amount of income upon exit, after comprehensively considering practical issues such as the time of cashing in stock, market price, and payment of management fees and taxes, he maximized the amount from a legal and factual perspective and maximized the interests for the client upon exit. The court of first instance fully supported the client’s claims. This is a typical case of exit from a corporate fund. The litigation strategies and results in this case have established a very feasible operating paradigm for the last and most substantial step of this type of investment: "exit and profit realization". 

RMB 200 million dispute over the private placement of Huadong Technology shares
In January 2015, Huadong Technology made a non-public offering of shares. Li Chen and his team represented a wholly-owned asset management subsidiary of a securities company in responding to a lawsuit arising from the dispute over the asset management plan's participation in the private placement. The disputed amount involved in the case was about RMB 200 million. Due to the fact that there was few information contained in the final instruction document presented in the form of “written documents” in the private placement process, because many complex situations and decisions required high timeliness, the actual communication situation was difficult to restore. In order to collect evidence, in handling the case, Li Chen comprehensively sorted out all written documents, emails, and instant messaging information, and received evidence provided by third parties to build a relatively complete chain of evidence. During the trial, Li Chen forced the other party into a situation where it could not justify itself through carefully designed interlocking questions. In order to convince the judges into free valuation of evidence to the greatest extent and convince them that the asset manager had no subjective fault in participating in the private placement as per the investors’ instructions, which ultimately helped the client win the lawsuit. The court of first instance, the court of second instance and the court of retrial all ruled that the manager had no flaws in the performance of its duties, thus safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of the manager. This is China’s first case in which the investors of a targeted asset management plan have filed a lawsuit against a manager for a dispute over fiduciary duty and liabilities. This case has been reported by many media such as eastmoney.com, caixin.com, and hexun.com. The judicial trial of this case has clarified the boundaries of the managers of this type of asset management products in fulfilling their fiduciary duty, which is of groundbreaking significance for the handling of similar cases.
 Approx. RMB 100 million dispute over the fiduciary duty of the manager of a well-known PRC asset management company 
In August 2017, LETV experienced a debt crisis. In the context of investors recovering debts from LETV, some investors also filed a lawsuit against the PE fund manager for compensation. The limited partner requested compensation from the PE fund and the executive partner (fund manager) and its parent company. The limited partner filed a lawsuit for a dispute over the partnership agreement, requesting the termination of the partnership agreement, the return of investment funds and the payment of investment income. Li Chen represented the fund manager in responding to the lawsuit, and the team represented the parent company in responding to the lawsuit. The disputed amount of this case was RMB 100 million. This case involved professional issues such as the manager's fiduciary duty, performance of duties, and the legal and regulatory compliance of the transaction structure. The verdict of this case is crucial to whether all the investment funds of the entire PE fund exceeding RMB 400 million are compensatable by the manager, which involves the significant interests of the manager. The client won the lawsuit before both the court of first instance and the court of second instance, both of which ruled that the manager had no flaws in the performance of its duties and needed to bear no compensatory liability.

RMB 2 billion+ non-litigation negotiation project for GD Solar’s restructuring  
GD Solar Co., Ltd. is a leading photovoltaic cell and power station manufacturer in China in terms of production capacity or technology, but it has owed a large amount of debt due to poor management and almost gone bankrupt. From March to May 2016, Li Chen was entrusted by GD Solar, together with a team of Dentons lawyers, to carry out the overall clearing of its claims and debts. Within three months, the team successfully settled hundreds of the client’s claims and debts through negotiations in a centralized manner, involving a total amount of more than RMB 2 billion. He helped the client to resolve a large number of lawsuits and potential lawsuits, optimize its assets, and achieve conditions for its subsequent restructuring.

Environmental pollution liability dispute in the “Changzhou soil pollution case" 
In 2017, due to secondary soil and air pollution during the remediation of Changzhou's "contaminated soil", many of Changzhou Foreign Languages School’s teachers and students suffered adverse effects. Li Chen represented the plaintiff, Beijing Chaoyang District Friends of Nature Environmental Research Center, to sue the five defendants, namely the owner, the contractor, the research institute, the environmental supervisor, and the engineering supervisor, demanding that they bear the corresponding liability. The case attracted widespread attention from all walks of life, and the Changzhou Intermediate Court formed a seven-member collegiate panel to hear the case.

In this case, the defendants failed to build a closed steel structure greenhouse in accordance with the requirements of the remediation plan in the process of pollution control, which resulted in secondary air pollution due to the leakage of toxic gas and secondary oil pollution caused by the unregulated transportation and incineration of the contaminated soil. The legal issues involved, such as pollution consequences and causality, were tricky and complex, and there was no precedent to follow. Li Chen always had a clear idea in representing the case, and through in-depth investigation and evidence collection, experts’ use of virtual governance cost method to issue assessment opinions and other methods, finally helped the client to achieve a desirable result by closing the case through mediation.

Languages

Mandarin and English

Practising Certificate
Legal Practising Certificate

Professional Honors and Memberships 
Li Chen was ranked among ALB China's Top 15 Litigators 2022;
Li Chen was recommended in the Dispute Resolution/Litigation category in the 2022 edition of The Legal 500 Asia Pacific;
Invited mediator at the People's Court of Pudong New Area;
Arbitrator at Shanghai Arbitration Commission;
Arbitrator at Hangzhou Arbitration Commission;
Part-time master mentor at East China University of Political Science and Law;
Visiting professor at Shanghai University Law School;
Deputy Director of Corporate Risk Control Research Center of Shanghai Law Society;
Member of Financial Committee of Shanghai Youth Federation

Publications
Li Chen participated in the compilation of the 2021 Wolters Kluwer Series of Practice Guidelines: Practical Guidelines for Civil and Commercial Dispute Resolution;
Research on Several Legal Issues in Large Municipal Engineering Construction and Operation;
Real Estate and Construction Legal Practice Application Series;
Comparison between China and Foreign Countries: Research on Soil Remediation Systems for Contaminated Sites (Law Press·China, 2013);

Representative Clients
Longfor
CR LAND
COFCO
YANGO Group
Jiucheng Properties
Shanghai Waigaoqiao
Ascott
CITIC Pacific
Changjia Group
Kaisa
Haisum 
Samsung C&T
SNPTC
Anxin Trust
Chang’an Trust
Zhongtai Trust
Haitong Securities 
Haitong Asset Management
Haitong Creative
HFT Fund
CHAMC
Xingcheng Capital
Spinnotec
Eastern Bell Capital
Minsheng Bank
Bank of Ningbo
Fullgoal Fund
Xinyuan Fund

Education

Shanghai International Studies University Bachelor of English Linguistics
East China University of Political Science and Law Master in Civil and Commercial Law

Employment

• 2003-2007  Shanghai City Development Law Firm  Associate
• 2007-2010  Shanghai Diligence Law Firm  Senior Partner
• 2010-till now  Beijing Dentons Law Offices, LLP (Shanghai）  Senior Partner