Watch now: CLARS Law and Business Seminar, Doing Business the Alibaba/Ant Way
The CLARS Law and Business Seminar held on Thursday 10 April 2025, reviewed the meteoric growth and challenges of Alibaba/Ant Group, the largest of China’s private e-commerce and “fintech” platforms.
Monash Law’s Centre for Commercial Law and Regulatory Studies (CLARS) recently hosted a fascinating seminar in collaboration with the Asian Corporate Law Forum. The event explored the rise of Chinese fintech firms - an especially timely topic given the ongoing tariff tensions between the US and China.
The keynote speaker was Associate Professor Colin Hawes from the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), with commentary provided by Jenny Chen, Relationship Director at Westpac and ACT President of the Australia China Business Council.
Colin delivered a detailed analysis of how Chinese fintech firms achieved explosive growth, offering a broad range of financial services within China’s intricate business ecosystem.
Jenny complemented this with insights into the everyday impact of these developments, sharing anecdotes such as recently ordering an ice cream cone online that arrived fully frozen in under 10 minutes.
Jenny Chen, Professor Jennifer Hill, Associate Professor Colin Hawes and CLARS Deputy Director Associate Professor Steve Kourabas.
While these online platforms have opened up a whole new environment for small and medium enterprises (“SMEs”) to do business within and outside China, creating tens of millions of new jobs, the sheer scale of their growth has exacerbated key defects of the Chinese SME ecosystem, especially endemic fraud, product safety issues, and intellectual property violations, and led to serious monopoly abuses.
The platform economy has also diversified rapidly into a wide range of financial services, some providing the essential lifeblood for legitimate businesses while others are highly speculative and risky.
The Chinese government’s contradictory responses to this massively expanding sphere of private economic activity reveal the difficult tightrope that such firms (and the government itself) must walk over the triple chasms of over-heated financial chaos, political regulation, and potential economic collapse.
Keynote speaker
Dr Colin Hawes, Associate Professor, University of Technology Sydney
Dr Colin Hawes is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law, University of Technology Sydney, Australia, teaching Corporate Law, Asian Law, and Chinese Business Law. He has an LL.B. and a Ph.D. in Chinese studies from the University of British Columbia, Canada, and a B.A. Hons. from the University of Durham, UK. He also studied Chinese language at People’s University in Beijing and Wuhan University. Colin has published widely on Chinese corporations, law, and culture, including three books, the latest of which is The Chinese Corporate Ecosystem (Cambridge University Press, 2022; paperback edition 2023). He regularly acts as an expert witness in international legal disputes involving Chinese businesses.
Commentator
Jenny Chen, Relationship Director, Westpac Group Commercial Banking; ACT President, Australia China Business Council; Ambassador, lululemon
Jenny Chen is a bilingual strategic management professional with over 18 years of leadership experience across retail, commercial banking, strategic sales planning, client acquisition, and team leadership. She has a strong background in retail and e-commerce, driving digital transformation and customer engagement strategies. With a deep understanding of the cultural nuances and preferences of both Australia and China, Jenny is passionate about building cross-market relationships and delivering tailored solutions that meet diverse customer needs.
Chair
Chair: Professor Jennifer Hill, Faculty of Law, Monash University
Professor Jennifer Hill is the Inaugural Bob Baxt AO Chair of Corporate and Commercial Law and Director of CLARS. Her scholarship on comparative corporate law and governance is widely cited in judicial decisions and academic literature in Australia, the United States, Europe and Asia. Jennifer has received several ARC Discovery grants and held visiting teaching and research positions at leading international institutions, including Cambridge University; Cornell; NYU; University of Virginia, and Vanderbilt University. She is a Research Member of the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) and the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence on Sustainable Finance and EU Law (EUSFiL), University of Genoa, Italy. She is also a Life Member of Clare Hall, Cambridge and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law.