King & Wood Mallesons’ Hong Kong branch has hired four prominent lawyers who specialise in derivatives and restructuring – Liew Chin-chong, Damien Whitehead, Zhou Ying and Simon Zhang.
Having been the former head of Linklaters’ structured finance and derivatives practice in Asia, Liew is a leading figure in this sector as well as in financial market infrastructure. He has been practising for more than 30 years and previously the HKEX’s lead partner for the development of the Swap Connect programme.
Liew was a former partner at Allen & Overy (now A&O Shearman) and Linklaters for many years, before he joined KWM as a partner.
Whitehead has been appointed as the head of restructuring at KWM’s Hong Kong office. The restructuring and insolvency veteran has helped several law firms to establish restructuring practices in Hong Kong, Singapore and Southeast Asia.
He was a former head of restructuring and insolvency in Greater China at Herbert Smith Freehills, before joining White & Case and Ashurst as a partner. Whitehead then switched lanes to become a senior consultant at investment management firm AB CarVal Investors.
Zhou is a former partner at Zhao Sheng Law Firm (Linklaters’ joint operation partner in China) and Zhang is a former counsel at Linklaters. Five other lawyers will also join them at KWM, and the team will jointly serve clients in Hong Kong and Shanghai.
With a focus on structured finance and derivatives, Zhou has been counselling centres such as Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing, the Shanghai Clearing House and the Dalian Commodity Exchange.
Zhang has practised at Linklaters for nearly 20 years, focusing on advising international financial institutions and participating in the development of the Swap Connect programme between the mainland and Hong Kong’s capital markets.
