A Flat World

Weather: Fog

Temperature: 10 c

Shortly before my wallet was stolen, I bought a book titled “The World is Flat” for RMB25. Had I not bought that book, the RMB25 would have been stolen anyway. That’s why my parents always say buying books is always the smart choice.

The World is Flat is definitely a good read, especially for those who are involved in the IT sector. This book uses a lot of computer languages like HTML, HTTP, Apache etc which I know nothing about. I ashamedly admit that my knowledge with respect to computer stops at the boundaries of typing documents, checking emails, simple blogging and news browsing.

This book opens my eye wide for I am actually the living example of what the book was trying to say – a world without boundaries. To demonstrate to you that the world today is indeed flat, allow me to share with you a recent project which I was involved in.

Our client was a venture capitalist based in the USA (investor) and was interested to invest in a company established in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), which mainly involves in operating international schools for non PRC residents (target company). The target company was owned by a group of offshore companies which were established in tax efficient territories like Hong Kong, Singapore, BVI, Cayman Islands and West Samoa. These offshore companies were owned by individuals who were scattered all over the world, including USA, UK, Canada, Singapore and Thailand. We were the PRC counsel engaged by the investor to handle the deal while a New York firm was also retained to take care of all the offshore documents. Like wise, the target company also employed a PRC firm and a law firm from Cayman Islands for this deal.

Ok, I hope I have not made things too complicated. To sum it up, the above deal involves people in the following countries: PRC, USA, UK, Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore, BVI, Cayman Islands, West Samoa, and Thailand – fairly evenly distributed across the globe. Now, the first few things we had to do were to prepare a set of transaction documents which involved all the parties. Imagine, 20 years ago when people were still relying on type writers and snail mails, when internet and emails were in the same league with the fairy tales, how difficult it would be for a deal like this to be pulled through? When one party was busy drafting the legal documents, the other party across the globe would still be sleeping. Once a party has finished the first draft, he would need to courier it to all the parties for their review and comment, and it would take a very long time before all the comments could be collected and the next round of revision could be made.

But now, the world has been flattened. The type writers were slowly moved to the museum. In fact, many youngsters today have never used a type writer before! The internet, fax machines, phones, emails, Blackberry etc have made life so much easier. More things could be done more efficiently and cheaply.

With the advancement of technology, the time difference is no longer a barrier but an advantage which we could harp on. When the counsel in New York has prepared a draft document, he would send it to me in PRC via email and thereafter he could go back and rest. I would revise his draft when he was sleeping and by the time he got back to work, my revised draft was already waiting for him in his inbox. No time was wasted at all.

There was once when all the counsels (they were in New York, LA, Shanghai, and Beijing) were required to simultaneously discuss a list of all outstanding issues, all we have to do was arrange a suitable time through emails and the discussion could take place using a conference call. Sometimes, if necessary to see each other’s facial expression, we could even organize a video conference call.

We (the people in New York, LA, Shanghai and Beijing) went though the list item by item to make sure that we did not miss out any loose ends. That was a great experience for me. I witnesses first hand that the world was so flat that I sometimes forgot that the person on the other end was actually talking to me from the other side of the Earth.

Things which were so difficult to be done 20 years ago (e.g. drafting an agreement by counsels from different parts of the world) could now be accomplished in a matter of days. All thanks to the marvel of innovation. This world is moving ahead at light speed, and it waits for no one. I personally knew an American lawyer who is already 72 years old but still knows how to use Microsoft Office to amend contracts.

The Chinese says: learning is like sailing against the tide – if you are not moving forward, you are definitely moving backward.




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