While twenty years ago the term legal compliance was more or less unknown this has changed significantly over the past two decades. In fact, legal compliance is nowadays sometimes even regarded as a separate industry. Legislators, business organizations, the legal profession and to a certain extent also providers of legal education have responded to this development in various ways.

This seminar explains how the concept of legal compliance has developed, what the historical reasons for the rise of this new area are, how different stakeholders have been driving forces behind this development and how they have reacted. It explains different compliance tools and structuring options and what the advantages of strong compliance systems are, focusing on the role of technology, under the rubric of ‘RegTech’.

The seminar also explores if industry specifics or special features of particular jurisdictions are determining factors for the development and design of compliance systems. In this regard it focuses on Hong Kong’s legal system and culture to exemplify what legal compliance means in a particular context. The seminar concludes with a summary and an outlook as to how legal compliance will develop in the future followed by a Q&A session.