Jean Bao

Jean is Of Counsel of Maples and Calder’s Asia Corporate and Asia Dispute Resolution & Insolvency team in the Maples Group’s Hong Kong office.  She advises on a wide range of British Virgin Islands and Cayman Islands corporate, commercial litigation, restructuring and insolvency matters. A native Mandarin Chinese speaker, she previously practiced law in Chinese Mainland as a dispute resolution and insolvency lawyer for several years, gaining substantial PRC court, arbitration and bankruptcy experience and a deep understanding of Chinese business and legal environment. She also holds a JD from the US, which complements her Cayman and BVI law practice.

Jean frequently advises on contentious and non-contentious matters, including contentious board meetings HKSE take private scheme of arrangement, NASDAQ and NYSE take private statutory mergers,amongst others. She also has extensive experience across complex cross-border insolvency and restructuring mandates, and has acted on some of Asia’s most high‑profile insolvency and restructuring matters in recent years, including China Evergrande Group, Sunac, Powerlong, Kaisa and Logan. Her work spans schemes of arrangement, winding‑up proceedings, appointments of provisional liquidators, creditor protection strategies, and the navigation of competing stakeholder interests across multiple jurisdictions.

Jean also has a significant Cayman Islands share appraisal practice. She has been involved in appraisal proceedings arising from take-private transactions and statutory mergers, including matters concerning eHi, Sina, 58.com, 51job, WinTrix, and Xiaodu. She is familiar with the valuation issues, expert evidence and procedural dynamics that are central to these cases.

Beyond restructuring and appraisal litigation, Jean’s commercial disputes practice in both the BVI and Cayman is broad. She advises on on just and equitable winding‑up proceedings and share redemption disputes in the Cayman Islands, shareholder disputes in the BVI, and manages recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments in both jurisdictions. Her practice is characterised by pragmatic, solutions‑focused advice and a deep understanding of the offshore courts and their procedures.

Jean joined the Maples Group in 2018.  Prior to that, she was as an associate in Fangda Partners’ Shanghai office for four years, where she worked on complex litigation and arbitration cases, which included advocacy before the PRC courts and arbitral tribunals.  Jean also represented creditors, debtors and investors in a broad range of insolvency and restructuring proceedings.