Expanding into China: How LexisNexis helped a retail conglomerate gain legal and compliance visibility to fuel growth

As a prominent retail conglomerate with shopping malls, supermarkets, and department stores, our customer was eager to capitalise on China's booming consumer market. But navigating the complex legal and regulatory landscape proved challenging.

Challenges: The Compliance Hurdles of Operating in Mainland China

After being acquired by a Chinese asset management firm, the customer accelerated its expansion into the mainland market, opening multiple stores in major first-tier cities. However, this expansion brought a new set of complexities:

• The customer's Hong Kong-based legal team struggled to keep pace with the constantly evolving laws and regulations across China's diverse regions.
• Hiring contract workers and ensuring food safety compliance became minefields, risking hefty fines and business disruptions.
• Strict rules around digital advertising and consumer data protection required extra vigilance as the customer embraced e-commerce and live streaming.

Solutions: Leveraging LexisNexis' Legal and Compliance Expertise in the Chinese market

With Lexis® China, LexisNexis provided the customer with guidance on Chinese mainland laws and regulations, as well as practical insights, to support their market expansion in China: 

• One-stop access to Chinese mainland laws and regulations, supplementing the legal knowledge of the Hong Kong-based legal team, and only seeking external Chinese legal counsel for complex legal issues, thereby reducing legal costs. 

• Accessing to Law Firm Resources: For complex topics such as taxation and intellectual property, the customer read specialised articles written by leading law firms, such as law firms and accounting firms, and selected appropriate legal and tax services based on these resources. 

• Reducing Labor Costs: Referring to LexisNexis' Flexible Employment Guidelines, the customer optimised its human resource allocation and reduced labor costs while remaining compliant in hiring contract workers for its stores. 

• Self-Inspection for Food Safety Compliance: Based on LexisNexis's guide on the legal supervision and compliance requirements throughout the food production lifecycle, the customer conducted self-checks on compliance in all aspects, from product admission, R&D registration, production, operation to usage, ensuring food safety and brand credibility. 

• Standardising Advertising Content: Following LexisNexis' Advertising Compliance Handbook, the customer summarised the industry-specific regulations for food, health products, and medical and beauty products, and established behavioral guidelines for live streaming, ensuring no false advertising by product endorsers and avoiding hefty fines. 

• Regulatory Alerts: The customer subscribed to smart notifications on the latest retail industry regulations and administrative penalties, tracking daily updates of the penalties to its subsidiaries to avoid serious consequences such as business suspensions. 

The Remarkable Results

By partnering with LexisNexis, the customer was able to have a:

• 80% reduction in external legal fees
• 30% decrease in labour costs through optimised HR practices
• 50% faster time-to-market for new mainland stores compared to competitors
• Avoidance of costly administrative penalties due to non-compliance

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