About

Despite a relatively small function of three staff, the legal team of the Milan Branch of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) – one of China’s state-owned banking institutions and the most valuable bank in the world by market capitalisation as of February 2017 – plays an important role in the bank’s fledgling Italian and wider European operations. Supporting the company through its agenda of increasing activities in these markets, the legal team is said to have played a crucial role in this process as an essential business partner for senior management and all relevant business lines. Joining ICBC in February 2015, head of legal Andrea Megale leads a team that is ‘deeply involved’ in all phases of the branch’s activities; helping support transactions all the way through from conception as well as supervising any external counsel and other ICBC lawyers in other jurisdictions. Megale has overseen a ‘great increase’ in these activities and the company, at Megale’s suggestion, has ‘progressively adjusted the business strategy on supporting Italian large state-owned enterprises mainly in relation to infrastructure, industrial and telecommunication sectors. Until the end of 2016, the proportion of credit facility granted to Italian companies reached approximately 70% of the total turnover of the Branch’. Megale also states that ‘on the basis of my suggestions, the branch played a crucial role in such a growing process’ and she has set up a ‘high quality legal team which soon became an essential business partner for the senior management and the relevant business lines’. Megale highlights the contributions of all team members but corporate relationship manager Germano Del Re is cited for his ‘outstanding’ contribution to the team thanks to his assistance to lenders in helping achieve the company’s wider goal to ‘promote economic and trade exchanges between China and Italy’.