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Climate and Corporate Responsibility: Better Late Than Never!

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Recent extreme weather events have further raised global awareness of climate and environmental issues, concerns that will top the agenda at COP27 and other upcoming climate summits. However, only 59% of the respondents to our survey consider climate change in their ESG due diligence; this is surprisingly low and well below other ESG due diligence considerations.

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Climate and Corporate Responsibility: Better Late Than Never!

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Susan (“Suz”) co-chairs the Sustainability + Corporate Responsibility and Social Enterprise + Impact Investing practices. Her practice focuses on late-stage financings, secondaries, and other corporate transactions for investors, such as SoftBank and Temasek, and on investments for some of the top investors dedicated to impact, from “impact first” foundations to family offices to private equity funds. She co-led the drafting group for the first of the new corporate forms (the Social Purpose Corporation in California), has created hybrid/tandem corporate structures and crafted debt and equity instruments that blend impact with traditional financial terms, and has used corporate law to develop creative capital market solutions to pressing environmental problems. She also advises the boards of public and private companies on corporate governance and fiduciary duties as applied to sustainability and climate change.She was named a California Lawyer Attorney of the Year (CLAY) in 2012 and 2016 by Daily Journal and the Most Innovative Lawyer in North America in 2015 by the Financial Times.Leading Business AdvisorA powerhouse negotiator, clients note that “you cannot get a better corporate counsel” and that Suz “understands the big picture, could not be more responsive, and understands the business” (The Legal 500 US). She has extensive experience providing corporate and finance advice to companies and investors in connection with growth equity financings and secondaries, with particular experience in late-stage investments that have come to rival traditional strategic acquisitions in size and significance. Her experience includes leading some of the highest-profile late-stage investments over the past few years, including notable transactions for SoftBank Group (in the two largest private tender offers in history) in its $7.7 billion investment in Uber, $4.4 billion investment in WeWork, further $10 billion investment in WeWork, $1 billion investment in SoFi, and $250 million investment in Kabbage. She has also advised Temasek on its $800 million investment in Verily Life Sciences, Intel on its equity investment in Cloudera, and each of Fortress, TPG Rise, Vision Ridge Partners, Generation Investment Management, and Pontifax AgTech in numerous mid- to late-stage investments in clean technology, sustainability, education, food, and agriculture technology.Social Enterprise and Impact InvestingSuz is the go-to legal resource for social enterprises (for-profit and non-profit companies focused on social or environmental purpose), impact investors (investors interested in social or environmental returns), and mainstream companies developing environmental, social, and corporate governance policies. With deep expertise in the impact investing model, institutional investors exploring the space turn to her for creative solutions and her ability to structure both investments and companies to emphasize impact and returns.She represents a wide range of investors who are focused on impact, from foundations like the Gates Foundation, The Nature Conservancy, and The Rockefeller Foundation, to family offices like Armonia, Cornerstone Capital, Emerson Collective, New Island Capital, and Omidyar Network, to private equity funds like Goldman Sachs, TPG Rise, Vision Ridge Partners, and Generation Investment Management, in their equity investments in companies and projects that are focused on generating impact and returns for investors. She has deep experience and expertise ensuring energy, sustainability, and other investments have positive impact through the use of new corporate forms, hybrid or “tandem” structures with non-profits and for-profits, and alternative debt and equity instruments.Notable work in this space includes the establishment of a tandem structure, The Carbon Endowment, to retire coal assets at scale while securing a revenue stream for community reinvestment and job training in coal communities. Suz also advised on the structuring of Common Sense Growth as an extension of the non-profit Common Sense Media (to invest in companies that address issues related to children, education, and technology), the establishment of a fund for TPG Rise to provide debt financing to Echoing Green fellows, the spin-out of PRX from Public Radio International (to generate new revenue flows up to the non-profit), the establishment of a for-profit joint venture with non-profit Medicines360 (to allow the non-profit to distribute its healthcare products to women in the developing world), and the structuring of a for-profit evergreen fund that allows The Nature Conservancy to aggregate return-seeking and donor capital in order to invest in preserving our natural resources. She has also advised numerous clients on converting to a public benefit corporation or social purpose corporation model (which requires balancing traditional fiduciary duties against a social or environmental purpose), including This American Life, Revolution Foods, Rise Labs, and Beneficial State Bancorp.Suz also regularly advises boards of directors of private and public companies, special committees, and CEOs on corporate governance, particularly the intersection of fiduciary duties with sustainability, and focuses on environmental, social, and governance issues.Unmatched Cleantech and Renewable Energy ExperienceIn addition to founding and chairing the firm’s Social Enterprise and Impact Investing Group, Suz serves as Chair of Morrison & Foerster’s Energy Group and has extensive experience representing start-up to late stage private companies in the clean technology or sustainability space. She provides corporate and finance advice in connection with equity and debt financings, mergers, acquisitions, asset purchases and sales, reorganizations, and joint ventures. She has experience working with renewable energy start-up companies and renewable energy developers in the solar, wind, and biofuels industries. Suz has assisted renewable energy start up companies with raising venture capital and has advised renewable energy developers on project acquisitions.Suz’s representative renewable energy, cleantech, sustainable, and social enterprise clients include Anaergia, Change.org, EDF Renewables, E.ON, Etsy, First Look, OneSun, Planet Labs, Rising Sun Energy, RSF Social Finance, SustainBio, Trelys, Inc., Wikipedia, and Xpansiv.Board Activity and Thought LeadershipMs. Mac Cormac was a founding board member of the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), is a member of the board of directors of Business for Social Responsibility (BSR), the Ceres President’s Council, and the Earth Genome Project, and is an advising board member of the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy’s Strategic Investor Initiative.She has joined the faculty (teaching on the intersection of sustainability and fiduciary duties) at both the Stanford Director’s College and the Northwestern Corporate Counsel Institute and is an adjunct professor at UC Berkeley School of Law, teaching a course on Social Enterprise.

Susan Mac Cormac

Partner

Chuan Sun is Managing Partner of the Shanghai office and Co-Managing Partner of the Hong Kong office.Chuan focuses his practice on cross-border M&A transactions; sophisticated technology, media, and telecom (TMT) transactions; and complex IP/commercial matters across Greater China.With more than 20 years of experience in both Asia and the U.S., Chuan regularly advises multinational corporations, state-owned enterprises, private companies, and PE/VC firms in complex cross-border M&A transactions, joint ventures, strategic alliances, and business separation transactions.Chuan has extensive experience in complex corporate-commercial and technology transactions across the Fintech, e-commerce, and broader TMT sectors. His work covers payment technology, eKYC, credit technology, blockchain, e-platform arrangements, R&D, co-development, technology collaborations, and IP licensing. He also advises on strategic outsourcing, manufacturing, distribution, supply, and franchising arrangements across various industries.Chuan regularly counsels clients on cutting-edge technology and IP regulatory matters, including Fintech, data privacy, cybersecurity, data localization, cross-border data transfers, cloud computing, telecommunications, telematics, and third-party payment services.Prior to joining MoFo, he worked in the Hong Kong office of a Magic Circle firm and the Chicago office of another leading international firm.Chuan co-authored the Hong Kong & mainland China chapters of Getting the Deal Through – Telecoms and Media, 2014, 2015 & 2016; the Hong Kong & mainland China chapters of Getting the Deal Through: Market Intelligence – Telecoms and Media, 2015; and the Hong Kong chapter of Sourcing World 2nd Edition 2015.Chuan is fluent in Mandarin and English.“Chuan Sun has a wealth of knowledge on his clients’ existing products and services offerings and a good understanding of what terms they are or are not willing to accept. This helps tremendously with contract negotiations.”“Chuan Sun has extensive experience in the technology space. Many other competitor firms in the technology space are not really pure IT lawyers, as they are more focus on privacy and trade marks or other related fields, as opposed to technology contracts such as SAP or Microsoft software license agreements. A normal general commercial lawyer would not be able to identify the same issues or raise the right questions, as they are not equipped with the technology know-how of the products and services, their benefits, and general industry standard terms and trending patterns in the market.” Legal 500 Asia Pacific 2020Chuan’s recent blockchain experience includes:<ul><li>Leading Global, China-Headquartered Fintech Company. Advise the company in connection with its first provision of blockchain and Real World Asset solutions in the fintech industry to a leading Chinese securities company for the latter’s first launch of structured product tokens, enabling secure, transparent, tamper-proof transactions for fixed-income and principal-protected tokenized products linked to US equity ETFs.</li><li>Leading Global, China-Headquartered Fintech Company. Advise the company in connection with the international expansion of its various business operations that are based on cutting-edge technologies, including blockchain and crypto, into multiple jurisdictions. </li></ul>

孙川律师的执业领域集中在大中华区的跨境并购交易，复杂的技术、媒体和电信(TMT)交易以及复杂的知识产权/商务事宜。孙律师在亚洲和美国有20多年工作经验，他经常代理跨国公司、国有企业、私人企业和私募股权/风险投资机构处理复杂的跨境并购交易、合资、战略联盟和业务拆分等交易。孙律师在战略性的公司商务和技术交易方面也拥有极为丰富的经验，包括外包、制造、分销、供应与特许经营安排，以及跨行业知识产权许可安排等。他在TMT和知识产权监管方面的经验包括电信、电子商务、互联网、网络安全、数据隐私、云计算以及车联网。在加入美富前，孙律师在一家 “魔法圈”律所(Magic Circle)的香港办事处和另一家领先的国际律所的芝加哥办事处工作。孙律师与他人合著了2014，2015和2016版《让交易推进下去––电信与媒体》(Getting the Deal Through – Telecoms and Media)中的香港和中国大陆章节，2015年版《让交易推进下去：市场情报––电信与媒体》(Getting the Deal Through: Market Intelligence – Telecoms and Media)中的香港和中国大陆章节，以及2015年《采购世界》第二版(Sourcing World 2nd Edition)的香港章节。2018年《亚太法律500强》指出“孙川律师十分高效、负责和实际。他非常擅长处理IT协议，包括软件许可和IT采购合同的相关事宜。他也十分善于处理跨境TMT交易。”孙律师精通普通话和英语。