Clyde & Co has powered up its insurance calibre with the hire of the Hong Kong Insurance Authority’s acting general counsel, Patrick Peng, as a partner and head of corporate for Greater China at the Hong Kong office.
Simon McConnell, a partner and chair of APAC at Clyde & Co in Hong Kong, told Asia Business Law Journal, China Business Law Journal’s sister publication, that Peng, who had joined the firm after more than eight years helping to build the HKIA from the ground up, was ideally suited to contribute to emerging areas such as the regulation of artificial intelligence in the insurance sector, and the tokenisation of real-world assets in the city.
“He (Peng) doesn’t just understand regulation – he helped write the rule book and practise it,” said McConnell.
Before moving in-house in 2017, when Peng joined the HKIA as a legal counsel, he had worked as a solicitor at Davis Polk & Wardwell advising on M&A, IPO and debt offerings in insurance and other industries including banking and mining. Throughout his eight year-plus stint at the HKIA, he participated in the creation of several regulatory regimes, including Hong Kong’s captive domicile, insurance-linked securities, risk-based capital, group-wide supervision and company re-domiciliation frameworks.
The insurance specialist’s experience with the regulatory process spans life and non-life insurance or reinsurance, corporate governance, licensing, market conduct and policy development.
As the Hong Kong-based head of corporate for Greater China at Clyde & Co, Peng will focus not only on Hong Kong but also Macau, the Chinese mainland and the wider Asia-Pacific region, advising on a range of matters from licensing and reinsurance to insurance-linked securities and M&A.
“Clients are specifically demanding risk management advice, beyond pure legal advice, and stricter regulatory compliance and enforcement measures continue to amplify this trend. Patrick is ideally suited to assist clients in this current environment,” said McConnell.
