Areas of practice
Mr. Haitao (Harry) Liu is a senior attorney in criminal defense, compliance and dispute resolution. He has represented officers of foreign enterprises in many cases prosecuted or investigated in China, acting as their defense counsel or providing them with in-depth legal counseling.
Mr. Liu has handled many high-profile criminal cases involving bribery, dereliction of duty, leakage of inside information, misappropriation of public funds, fraud, illegal fundraising, illegally taking deposits from the general public, running of casino, sabotage of computer information system, illegal business operation, environmental pollution, tax evasion and smuggling, etc.
Being a senior attorney with acknowledged specialty on criminal compliance, Mr. Liu is an expert listed as one of the roster of professionals under the Shanghai Municipal Third-party Mechanism. He was appointed as the head of the third-party organization expert group of the first case in China that went through criminal compliance procedure in the second instance. Meanwhile, Mr. Liu has also assisted many enterprises (central state-owned enterprises, foreign-invested enterprises as well as large private enterprises) with their establishment and upgrading of compliance system. He is widely recognized for his experience and skills in handling complicated disputes.
Currently, Mr. Liu is an external expert on civil and administrative supervision of the Supreme People’s Procuratorate. He also serves as the Deputy Director of Criminal Attorney Practice Research Institute of East China University of Political Science and Law, adjunct graduate student tutor of Fudan University Law School, expert counsel of Changfeng Base affiliated to Shanghai Procuratorate Research Institute specializing in internet crimes, and researcher of Corporate Compliance Research Center of East China Normal University. The criminal defense team of KWM East China under his direction includes a number of professional attorneys with extensive experience.
For a number of years, Mr. Liu has been recommended by international legal media, such as Chambers & Partners, Legal 500, Benchmark Litigation, as the band one or specially recommended attorney in compliance, investigation and anti-corruption in China. When awarding him as the Band One attorney in China in January 2017 in the Corporate Investigations/Anti-Corruption sector, Chambers wrote: “Liu Haitao (Harry) is well regarded for his rich experience in a range of areas, including internal investigations, compliance and commercial bribery. He is counsel of choice for a number of leading multinational and Fortune 500 companies. Market sources praised his experience and deep knowledge of various sectors, describing him as ‘insightful, and has a great ability to play things in the commercial and political framework’.”
Work experience and Education
Mr. Liu received his LL.B and J.M. from the Nanjing University and the East China University of Political Science & Law respectively, and he received his LL.M Degree from Columbia University.
Mr. Liu was admitted in both China and New York State of the United States. He is an arbitrator of CIETAC and SHIAC.
Mr. Liu’s working languages are Chinese and English.
