Roy (Ruoweng) Liu

Roy (Ruoweng) Liu is partner and chair of Hughes Hubbard's Greater China practice group.

Having been recognized by Legal 500, Chambers, and WorldECR, Roy Liu is a multidisciplinary problem solver adept at handling the most complex combinations of U.S. regulatory, investigation, litigation, and transactional issues.

A “go to” trade expert for many Fortune 500 companies, Roy routinely handles regulatory and compliance matters related to economic sanctions, export controls, anti-money laundering (AML), customs, information and communication technology (ICTS), and reviews by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). He regularly represents clients before the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), Office of Foreign Assets Controls (OFAC), Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and CFIUS.

Roy is battle-tested in all stages of U.S. federal government investigations.  In 2018, Roy was a core member of the defense team in the landmark investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Department of Commerce, and Department of Treasury against ZTE, securing a settlement for the company that resulted in the lifting of trade restrictions on the company.  Roy continues to play a key role in a number of ongoing major U.S. government investigations.

Roy also is an experienced litigator, having played a key role in employment and intellectual property disputes before federal courts in California and international trade disputes before the U.S. International Trade Commission, the U.S. Court of International Trade, the U.S. Federal Circuit, and the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Roy is familiar with U.S. regulatory issues in cross-border transactions, having assisted the due diligence and remediation efforts in numerous M&A transactions involving Global 500 companies.

Recognized as a leading expert on U.S. trade issues related to China, Roy has frequently been invited to speak on this topic at conferences hosted by the American Association of Exporters and Importers (AAEI), Thomson Reuters, WorldECR, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Global Enterprise Development Forum.  He also has appeared in numerous articles on this topic published by South China Morning Post, Politico, WorldECR, China Trade News, China Business Law Journal, Asia Times, Intelligeast, and the Tulane International Law and Comparative Law Journal.

While at Stanford University Law School, Roy was on the Stanford Law Review and was selected as an article editor.

• Currently representing a public traded Global 500 company in connection with a trade violation investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice
• Currently assisting a major Western company’s response to regulation by prosecutors appointed by the U.S. Department of Justice regarding its China operations
• Assisted ZTE Corporation, one of the largest global telecommunication companies, in negotiating and reaching a settlement agreement with the U.S. government and relevant regulators to successfully remove it from the Denied Persons List.
• Procured U.S. export and deemed export licenses for a leading Silicon Valley company on unmanned aerial vehicles technology developed in the United States
• Negotiated compliance representations and warranties and conducted related due diligence for several cross-border transactions involving Fortune 500 companies, including Dell, Honeywell, Cisco, Audi, DMW, Daimler, and Ford
• Obtained CFIUS clearance for the acquisition of a U.S. electronics company by a major Chinese asset management company
• Represent JX Nippon Oil & Gas Exploration Corporation before CFIUS in connection with carbon capture and CO2-enhance oil recovered project in Texas
• Assisted Yantai Jereh, a major publicly traded Chinese oil and gas equipment company, in its response to U.S. export control and sanctions enforcement actions; establishing an effective sanctions and export control compliance system; and successfully reaching a settlement agreement with the U.S. government to remove it from the Entity List. This is one of only a few successful cases of Chinese companies being removed from the Entity List in recent years
• Assisted a major casino with a U.S. anti-money laundering investigation
• Assisted a major U.S. importer of tires with a U.S. Customs audit and claims for additional duties
• Assisted numerous companies with mitigation of U.S. export controls risk and penalties in connection with their public listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange
• Conducted a comprehensive internal FCPA investigation in China for a global pharmaceutical company that has extensive operations in China