Shan
Small Business Sales & Acquisitions | Cross-Border M&A (China) | Commercial Law | 28+ Years Experience
Shan Lai is a commercial and M&A lawyer with 28 years of experience across China and Australia. She spent 15 years in Beijing with major international law firms, including 6 years as a Corporate and M&A Partner at Bird & Bird, one of the world’s leading international firms. In Beijing she advised Chinese state-owned enterprises on global acquisitions across more than 20 countries, and advised multinational companies, including Boeing, Macquarie Group and McGraw-Hill, on entering and operating in the Chinese market. Her work spanned mining and resources, technology and private equity, aviation, satellite technology, media, infrastructure and renewable energy, including public takeovers of listed companies.
Shan is fluent in Mandarin and Cantonese, and she works directly in the language and the culture of her clients, in Mandarin or Cantonese, without an interpreter in between. For Chinese businesses that means being understood on the first instance, on the commercial detail and the cultural context together, by a lawyer who has spent most of her career inside the relationship between China and Australia.
This is the work she does every day at Aspect Legal. She acts for Chinese businesses launching into the Australian market or buying a business here, for Chinese owners already operating in Australia, for Australian businesses that source from China, and for Australian businesses selling into the Chinese market. She advises on market entry and operations, joint ventures, regulatory approvals, supply and distribution arrangements, and payment mechanism. She leads Aspect’s commercial law work with Chinese clients, and our SME business sales and acquisitions team.
Her deal experience runs at every level, from small business sales through to cross-border transactions worth hundreds of millions, on both sides of the table. Whatever the size of the matter, the rigour is the same.
Alongside the deal work, Shan handles the everyday commercial foundations a growing business needs: contracts, shareholder and partnership agreements, supply and distribution arrangements, franchise agreements and regulatory compliance. Her approach to negotiation is simple. Understand what every party actually wants, then work the deal from there.
Shan holds a BA, an LLB and a Master of Laws from the University of Sydney. She is also completing a Master of Psychology, which she brings to the negotiating table to read what every party needs and find the path to agreement.
