The PRC/HK CEPA: What's on Offer for Hong Kong Law Firms?

By Susan Lavender , Solicitor , Dibb Lupton Alsop, Hong Kong

In legal services, concessions given under the Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA) transcend those that will eventually become available generally under the PRC's WTO timetable. Here we see that CEPA is not entirely a Cinderella package that will evaporate completely at the stroke of midnight. Some things are given to Hong Kong entities and individuals that will endure beyond the timetable of the PRC's WTO commitments. Nevertheless, the extent to which these concessions will benefit Hong Kong's foreign law firms and lawyers, even those with long-standing roots here, is not yet clear.

As we discussed in a previous article,¹ six annexes to CEPA covering its qualifying definitions and implementation methods were left unsigned when the main body of the text was concluded on June 29 2003. When these annexes were signed on September 29 2003, the definition of a "service supplier" (among other things) was inserted into Annex 5. This definition subsumes and enlarges upon the definition of a "Hong Kong company", which had been contained in the pre-September 29 2003 unsigned version of Annex 5. Annex 4 stipulates the concessions available in 18 service sectors. With respect to legal services, it provides concessions to Hong Kong and PRC domestic law firms, as well as to individuals from both jurisdictions.