China State Construction Engineering’s (CSCE’s) team of five in-house lawyers serve the legal needs of almost 5,000 staff at the real estate and construction giant, working across eight countries. To do this successfully requires ingenuity and resourcefulness. Measures such as a 30-day guillotine period for all disputes to be resolved convinced the judging panel to make this team Legal Department (Small Team) of the Year.
The team is made up of lawyers from China, Singapore and Egypt, affording the company knowledge of both common law and civil law jurisdictions. The team says its biggest challenge is the fact that the laws within the countries where CSCE operates are “relatively nebulous and nascent”. A priority is the tracking of court judgments and arbitration awards to ensure know-how is kept up to date.
