Richard is head of Freshfields IP/commercial practice group in Asia. He has twenty-five years of practicing experience, of which the past 15 years has been spent in Greater China.

Richard is known for his deep knowledge and versatility across a broad range of intellectual property, data privacy/ data security, regulatory and commercial disciplines.

In recent years Richard has spent around half of his time advising on data privacy and data security incident handling matters. He has led the firm’s response to the resolution of some of the world’s largest and most high-stakes data breach situations on a pan-Asia basis.

His other main focus area is commercial and transactional intellectual property arrangements of various kinds, with an emphasis on licensing, collaborations and joint ventures, focused on the life sciences, automotive, tech and telecoms sectors, where he is also very well versed in the applicable regulatory and specialised intellectual property issues. He is also one of the most experienced transactional IP lawyers working in Asia today.

His work takes him across the whole of Asia, although his main practice focus remains mainland China.