Frasers Law Company

Managing Partner: Mark Fraser

Languages: Cantonese, English, French, Russian, Vietnamese

Firm Overview:

Frasers Law Company (Frasers) is Vietnam’s premier independent commercial law firm, providing innovative, international-standard local law advice and opinions, in a Vietnamese context, on all areas of business and commerce to leading global and local companies investing and operating in Vietnam. Frasers was the first law firm to be licensed by the Ministry of Justice in Vietnam with a foreign law company licence.

The firm is culturally diverse and benefits from the integrated and cutting-edge expertise of its team of local and expatriate lawyers. Frasers understands the legal, commercial, political, and regulatory issues that affect businesses in Vietnam, and aims to provide comprehensive legal services to help clients navigate these complex issues and achieve outstanding business outcomes.

Main Areas of Practice:

Banking & Finance:

Frasers’ banking and finance practice is extremely strong, and the team advises on high-profile, large-scale, and complex projects for international clients, including major multinational financial institutions that have established operations in Vietnam and/or been involved in major domestic/or cross-border lending transactions within Vietnam. Frasers has recently advised lenders on the successful US$2.75 billion limited recourse financing arrangement for a 1,200-megawatt power-generated project.

Corporate & M&A:

The firm has worked on many of the largest and most complex M&A transactions in Vietnam, and its combined experience and expertise enable it to provide clients with innovative, individually tailored solutions that help them to achieve their business objectives in Vietnam. Frasers' M&A team has significant experience acting on the buy side and the sell side of transactions in connection with the acquisition of Vietnamese companies and assets.

Dispute Resolution:

Frasers’ dispute resolution practice group advises clients across a broad range of industry sectors, including the employment, energy, finance, construction and real estate, FMCG and logistics sectors. In the last 12 months the firm has been busy with construction disputes, real estate disputes, shareholder disputes, tax disputes, employment disputes, and intellectual property disputes.

Employment:

Frasers' employment practice advises numerous clients on contentious and non-contentious employment matters including the drafting of employment contracts, employment share and option plans, internal labour rules, collective labour agreements, outsourcing agreements, mutual termination agreements, and restructuring plans, the registration of agreements with the relevant departments. Moreover, the team has been involved in major restructurings of its clients’ employees; advising on numerous matters relating to the termination of employment contracts by employers, as well as investigations relating to fraud, embezzlement, and corruption by employees of various major companies in Vietnam.

Intellectual Property:

Frasers’ intellectual property (IP) practice group advises and assists clients across many industry sectors on a full range of IP matters, including registration and enforcement of trademarks, patents, copyright, drafting technology transfer contracts, as well as contentious IP matters relating to copyright, patent and trademark infringement and protection of trade secrets.

Projects, Infrastructure & Energy:

Frasers' projects, infrastructure and energy practice group focuses on infrastructure development and financing projects, especially oil and gas, power generation, telecoms, ports, and water treatment projects, as well as build-operate-transfer projects (BOT) and Public Private Partnership (PPP) initiatives. The firm's team has advised on upstream and downstream work, the development of refineries, pipelines, LNG and petrochemical terminals, power plants, and waste-to-energy technology. Frasers has recently advised for a 1,200-megawatt power-generated project being undertaken on a BOT basis.

Real Estate:

Frasers' real estate team works on a broad range of matters related to real estate including all aspects of property development matters, commercial leasing matters, M&A, complex fund and private equity transactions, and all aspects of those transactions, which often require the expertise of several of its practice groups. The firm's point of difference is that it has an integrated team of senior, talented lawyers who have extensive experience in acting on real estate transactions in Vietnam.

TMT:

The firm regularly advises clients on M&A transactions in this sector, as well as regulatory and licensing issues that its TMT clients face. It assists clients to prepare, negotiate and comment upon many kinds of contractual agreements, including outsourcing contracts between large corporates and suppliers of IT services. Work often requires the expertise of other practice groups and its integrated team provides local expertise that is tailored to each client’s specific requirements.