On December 3, 2025, renowned legal directory, Legal Hall of Fame, announced its "Dispute Resolution Lawyer of the Year (Arbitration) in 2025", which focuses on selecting veteran senior partners who are still active at the forefront of business and strategic decision-making while also striving to discover those high-performing and fast-growing industry pillars. Han Kun's Mr. Jia (David) Gu was named as a 2025 Dispute Resolution Lawyer of the Year (Arbitration) based on his wealth of practical experience and remarkable service achievements.
Lawyer's profile: David Gu specializes in complex commercial dispute resolution, with a focus on commercial arbitration and foreign-related or cross-border commercial dispute resolution. He has represented large Chinese business entities and multinational companies to participate in domestic and international arbitration proceedings, administered under the rules of ICC Court of Arbitration, LCIA, HKIAC, SIAC, SCC Court of Arbitration, Swiss Arbitration Court, CIETAC, and BAC, among others.
Mr. Gu has represented clients in a wide array of commercial cases, including international business transaction disputes (international sale of goods, shipping, payment and insurance), IP licensing disputes (petrochemical, complex mechanical and bio-pharmaceutical), public infrastructure and construction disputes (petrochemical, electricity power and clean energy), Sino-foreign JV and corporate shareholding disputes (cross border M&A and investment funds), financial derivative disputes (mid-term bond and long-term debenture and other securities), as well as cross-border asset tracing. Mr. Gu has successfully resolved disputes for his clients that involved amounts at issue of up to the billions of U.S. dollars.
Mr. Gu also has extensive litigation experience in Chinese national courts. He has represented several types of cases, including recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards or foreign national court civil or commercial judgments for Chinese and foreign clients, applications for interim measures in aid of the Hong Kong-seated arbitration proceedings, as well as a large number of domestic construction projects, on-demand bank guarantees, product liability and sale of goods cases, etc. in Chinese court trials and enforcement proceedings.
Additionally, Mr. Gu has assisted Chinese companies on many occasions in their overseas business expansion efforts by identifying cross-border legal risks, building up comprehensive and regional "corporate compliance systems", as well as dealing with "dawn raids" or large-scale investigation proceedings (administrative and criminal) initiated by foreign governmental agencies. Mr. Gu has maintained long-term and positive working relations with leading law firms, international consulting firms, and government relation and lobbying firms in the USA, Europe, the Middle East and major Belt and Road jurisdictions, enabling him to provide "one-stop" legal risk management and dispute resolution services for Chinese companies that pursue overseas ventures.
Mr. Gu often provides services for companies from industries including the automobile industry (old and clean energy driven), energy industry (petrochemical, electricity power and clean energy), e-commerce and gaming industry, international construction industry, and the financial services industry.
The selections for the list were based on four core dimensions, building a comprehensive multi-dimensional evaluation system through a combination of peer and client recommendations, platform data research, lawyer applications and law firm nominations, which aim to focus on the most powerful and dynamic pioneers in China's arbitration field.
