John Xia is a Senior China Counsel at Katten’s Shanghai office. Mr. Xia is fluent in both English and Chinese and his practice areas include foreign direct investment, mergers and acquisitions, and regulatory and compliance matters in relation to operation of foreign invested enterprises in China. He specializes in setting up wholly foreign owned enterprises, joint ventures and their branches in China, negotiating and drafting documents for cross-border mergers and acquisitions, corporate restructuring and liquidation, and he regularly represents multinational companies in handling China legal matters in relation to corporate governance, commercial contracts, labor and employment, and dispute resolution.
Mr. Xia holds a bachelor’s degree of law from Zhejiang University of China, a master’s degree of law from Ghent University of Belgium and a master’s degree of law from East China University of Politics and Law in China, and he was qualified as a Chinese lawyer in 2001. He worked for the Chinese government from 1993–1999 and he has been in private practice with several U.S. and European law firms’ Shanghai offices since 2003.