25 ASIAN LEGAL BUSINESS CHINA • 亚洲法律杂志-中国版 WWW.LEGALBUSINESSONLINE.COM/CHINA 王珺 北京星来律师事务所主任 wangjun@xinglailaw.com Leveraging professionalism, integration, and business acumen to deliver dedicated legal services for corporate compliance. —Interview with Wang Jun, Director of Beijing Starrise Law Firm This year, Starrise Law Firm, headquartered in Beijing, was listed in the 2024 ALB China Firms to Watch ranking. In an exclusive interview with ALB, Wang Jun, Director of Starrise Law Firm, shares the firm’s founding story, development journey, past achievements, and future direction. ALB: Starrise is a rare firm in the market that dedicates its entire effort to compliance services. What was the original intention behind its establishment? Wang Jun: Starrise was officially registered in December 2020, founded by attorneys with a background in criminal defense, who witnessed the evolution of their practice from general criminal defense to corporate criminal legal risk control. In 2018, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission issued the pilot Guidance on Compliance Management for Central Stated-Owned Enterprises, and in 2020, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate initiated pilot projects on corporate compliance, both gradually bringing and deepening the concept of compliance into industry focus. Inspired by these reforms, we decided to establish Starrise, aiming to integrate our strengths to develop compliance work within criminal cases. During the establishment of an effective compliance system, criminal defense lawyers can utilize their defense experience to retrospectively trace the formation of related corporate crimes and identify risk points, thereby refining methods to plug or divert these risks in detail. Of course, Starrise included a complete range of business sectors from the beginning, encompassing criminal, corporate, civil and commercial, administrative, litigation, and non-litigation lawyers, to meet the diverse needs of compliance services. We are pleased to see that by seizing market opportunities, Starrise has become the first law firm in the country to focus on compliance as its main business, establishing a unique market brand. ALB: What outstanding achievements has Starrise made in this field? Wang Jun: The growth of Starrise is reflected in the honors and achievements we have attained. In the field of compliance, we have garnered multiple accolades, achieving a certain level of market recognition. Statistical data show that the number, quality, and revenue of our compliance services have steadily increased over the past three years. In 2022, we handled Beijing’s first case of securities crime applying corporate compliance rectification, serving as a third-party supervisor for the involved compliance reform. This case was included in the Supreme People’s Procuratorate’s third batch of typical corporate compliance cases. Subsequently, Starrise participated in the selection of the fourth batch of compliance cases by the Supreme People’s Procuratorate and co-hosted a compliance legislation promotion seminar with three research bases of the Supreme People’s Procuratorate for corporate compliance, continuing to make our voice heard in the field of corporate compliance. Along with Starrise’s development, we have also extended from criminal-related corporate compliance to the broader field of comprehensive compliance services. In 2023, Starrise participated in several comprehensive compliance projects for central and state-owned enterprises, involving energy, construction, production, and other fields. The most representative is the comprehensive compliance services provided in October 2023 for Heze Medical College Affiliated Hospital in Shandong. This is one of the earliest cases of comprehensive compliance management construction in the national medical system, effectively exploring a model for the construction of compliance management systems in medical institutions. ALB: Providing compliance services requires lawyers to also possess business acumen and communication skills to achieve tailor-made solutions. What insights and best practices can Starrise share in this regard? Wang Jun: Starrise has accumulated several practical experiences in this area. Firstly, we have built internal teams consisting of lawyers from different business areas and levels, whose professional backgrounds, practical experience, and service capabilities complement each other. Although compliance is a non-litigation business, it benefits from the valuable experience of litigation lawyers. Relying on our extensive experience in criminal, civil, and commercial business areas, we can reverse-review a company’s criminal, administrative, and commercial risks from the perspective of the police or transaction counterparties, more acutely identifying risk points and providing more pertinent solutions for clients. In addition, our team includes members who have previously been responsible for compliance management in companies, bringing richer perspectives. Secondly, Starrise excels in collaborating with external partners, including external lawyers and expert consultants. For example, we have hired the drafter of the national corporate compliance standard GB/T 35001 as an expert for a project, and we maintain a close partnership with the compliance certification company SGS, seeking their guidance from a compliance certification perspective. Starrise consistently adopts an open, cooperative, and inclusive approach to business, integrating internal and external resources to provide higher-quality services for clients. Thirdly, compliance work requires understanding the business. Whenever Starrise undertakes a project, we first seek to understand the company’s business model, scope of operations, and the development of its industry. Only a compliance system built on an understanding of the business can help the company in its long-term development. Finally, in recent years, we have increasingly heard enterprises mention the topic and requirement of “forward-looking”. Domestically, this includes not only national macro policies but also local and different law enforcement department trends. For example, the field of data compliance has always been characterized by multiple departments jointly holding enforcement power, such as the Cyberspace Administration, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Communications Administration, and public security organs. Therefore, before embarking on related projects, it is necessary to understand and analyze the main regulatory departments and the severity of penalties in the company’s location to help clients do their work properly. ALB: What specific efforts has Starrise made to promote the level of compliance theory, advancing the construction of compliance rules, and raising social awareness of the importance of compliance? Wang Jun: Firstly, in terms of social activities, Starrise has hosted or co-hosted hundreds of events in the three years since its establishment. For example, in 2021, we cooperated with the Criminal Science Institute of Beijing Normal University and the Peking University Finance Alumni Association to organize a series of salons. From 2022 to 2023, we co-hosted financial compliance series salons with the Law School of Renmin University and held a themed event on “Compliance Work at the Court Trial Stage” with the Law School of Central University of Finance and Economics, promoting discussions on topics related to compliance practice reform and legislation. On the teaching level, several lawyers from Starrise have been included in the third-party compliance expert talent pools of various cities and regions, including Beijing, Xiong’an New Area, Jilin, Zhengzhou, Ningxia, and Lhasa. Our lawyers also actively participate in lectures organized by provincial bar associations and federations of industry and commerce, sharing compliance experience. They also conduct compliance teaching and exchanges for postgraduate and doctoral students at China University of Political Science and Law and Renmin University. Lastly, Starrise pays great attention to the accumulation of knowledge. We established the Starrise Research Institute, set up centers for environmental compliance, cybersecurity compliance, and compliance affairs research, and published a series of publications. These include white papers on criminal issues of listed companies (2017-2022), environmental compliance, and cybersecurity compliance blue books, co-authored with the China Judicial Big Data Research Institute and the Southern Finance and Law Institute. We also participated in the compilation of the 2022 corporate compliance officer exam designated textbook and recently compiled our experiences in criminal-related and comprehensive compliance into a book that will soon be published. ALB: What are Starrise’s key strategies and development goals for the future? Wang Jun: Next, we will focus on 2-3 specific compliance services to further expand the market and scale up our talent. One area of focus in recent years is data compliance, for which I have already obtained the Data Compliance Officer qualification, and Starrise will further develop in this field. Another focus is medical compliance, where we will replicate our “first case experience” to help more medical institutions undertake compliance construction. Starrise has accumulated extensive experience in deepening internal management through compliance services, which has effectively and positively interacted with our other criminal, civil, and commercial operations. In the future, while continuing to focus on compliance as our main business, Starrise will gradually explore expanding into diverse service areas. We aim to create a “comprehensive compliance” brand concept, merging the unique characteristics of different business areas. This integrated approach will assist enterprises in achieving comprehensive risk control, while also broadening the market’s understanding of the concept of compliance. We strive to diversify Starrise’s services while still emphasizing the core principle of compliance.
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