Conventus Law - www.conventuslaw.com
In-House Lawyer Profiles
Lawyer's Details
Kapil Kirpalani
June 2012
Kapil Kirpalani is currently Director, Legal and the Chief Compliance Officer for Pacific Harbor Capital, a Pan-Asian Asset Management Firm in Hong Kong. Kapil established the Fund with a team of 3 peers in 2006 having secured seed capital from Citigroup Alternative Investments New York, grew it to a size of approximately 30 staff and setup additional offices in Singapore, Tokyo Bangkok, Manila, Jakarta, Taipei and Mumbai.
He and his team manage a substantial Asian debt trading and investment business with approximately US$3Bn invested to date, generating an annualized net return in excess of 13% Kapil leads and develops relationships with regulators, the SFC (Hong Kong), MAS (Singapore), FSA (Japan), SEC (United States) as well as regional and global counsel. He supervises in-house teams and focuses primarily on secured trade and bridge finance, acquisition financing, as well as regulatory and compliance reporting across Asia. Kapil specializes in high yield, stressed and distressed debt transactions, as well as private placements with a focus on undervalued, relatively liquid sub-investment grade debt investments. He has also developed and enhanced key risk management controls across all 8 regional offices, while fostering partnerships with leading global banks and individual strategic advisors, including CEOs from global fund houses. Outside of this, Kapil is an advisor to various startups in Asia.
What is your sector?
Financial Sector.
How many employees are in your company?
There are 30 employees in our company (including employees in our satellite offices).
What are your company’s main location(s) of lawyers?
Our legal team works out of the Hong Kong Office.
What main area(s) of law do you practice?
The main areas of law related to our business includes Corporate, Banking, Funds, and Regulatory Compliance.
What are the biggest regulatory issues you are facing at the moment?
One of the biggest regulatory issues we face is to keep up-to-date with the constantly changing regulatory regime and ascertaining that the company is in compliance with all the applicable laws and regulations.
What main law firms does your company use?
We engage different law firms for different purposes/projects. The following are a list of law firms we have engaged in the past:
White and Case
Latham and Watkins
Appleby Global
Walkers Global
How often do you outsource legal work?
Most, if not all of our documents are drafted by our in-house lawyers. External counsel is engaged where an expert or second opinion is needed in a certain area of law or where legal issues arise within a jurisdiction which is foreign to our in-house team.
Do you feel that there is or will continue to be pressure to put together panels/preferred supplier lists (PSLs) for vendors (including external law firms) with a view of reducing costs?
Yes
Aside from fees, what are the main criteria you consider important when deciding whether to hire a law firm for a particular matter?
When deciding to hire a firm, we will consider (other than fees):
- Whether that firm has expertise in the area in which we seek advice
- How much experience the firm/lawyers handling the matter has in managing/handling similar matters
- Whether the firm will be able to handle the matter on a timely basis