Regional approach the way to go


They call the collection of many islands nations in the Pacific as “one market”.

They join a new movement of businesses that come here focused on these scattered tiny dots as one very big challenge.

Only a smart business solution like a regional approach is what they believe can justly turn that challenge into one very big opportunity. 

They are two well-established law firms: Davis Wright Tremaine (DWT) of the United States and Pacific Legal Network (PLN) in Australia.

In a move they describe as “the best example of regionalism for professional services so far in the Pacific,” the two law firms are pooling together expertise and resources in a new venture called DWT Pacific. It is slated to offer “the only unified, trans-Pacific legal and business advisory team in the market".

“With one phone call, companies around the world can now get the help they need across the entire Pacific,” said DWT managing partner, Dave Baca, in a press release to announce the venture. “This is new, valuable and, I think, unmatchable.

“We are closely linking our US and Shanghai offices with our partner in Australia. Adding David Cohen, who was the United States representative to the Pacific Community, and the PLN office in the Pacific provides a unified services platform for clients throughout the Pacific,” Baca said.

Cohen, who now works for DWT, was formerly head of the US Department of the Interior Office of Insular Affairs. The American affiliated countries in the Pacific are not new grounds for him. 

PLN is headed by John Ridgway, a former president of the Australia/Pacific Business Council (APBC) and whose firm has been involved in the French, English and US territories in the Pacific. 

Together, Ridgway and Cohen alongside DWT senior partner Craig Miller, who recently moved from the US to Sydney, will co-chair DWT Pacific. 

“It probably is the best example of regionalism for professional services so far in the Pacific,” Ridgway told ISLANDS BUSINESS.

“It’s something similar to the Digicel approach in regionalising. I mean, that’s what we do and there’s no other professional service that do that at the moment.

“Frankly, I think that’s very sad. But we are very lucky because we have been doing it for some time. Almost everyone who has worked with us has lived and worked in the Pacific, including Cohen.

“Everyone has done something significant in the Pacific so it’s not something particularly new. It’s really a bigger extension of what we’re already doing and in that sense, it’s probably much easier for us to do it than anybody else,” said Ridgway.

This configuration of PLN affiliates and DWT stakeholders has “a third of the world covered” in that it has the entire Pacific on its radar to link up with potential investment interests from the US, China (DWT was the first US law firm to open an office in Shanghai, according to Cohen), Australia and New Zealand (PLN will open a New Zealand office soon, according to Ridgway).  

One immediate opportunity on the agenda is the expansion of US military presence in the Pacific via a major extension to naval bases in Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI).  

“That’s a very important development from a geo-political perspective and it also has a very significant economic impact not only for Guam but the surrounding region as well,” Cohen told ISLANDS BUSINESS. 

“I have always been an advocate in attracting good companies into the region so that the region can develop economically. We don’t want bad companies that wouldn’t respect islands cultures and would just take money out of the islands. But we do want to attract companies.

“When I was at the Interior, we organised four conferences on business opportunities in the islands where we reached out to good companies from all over the world and allowed the US affiliated islands communities to demonstrate why they would be good places in which to do business. 

"A lot of good opportunities came out of that. So I think that was a very important effort because the economic conditions in most of the Pacific are lagging behind much of the rest of the world and it’s causing people to leave. It is a real threat to the continuing survival of a lot of islands communities.”

During his service within the US government, Cohen was closely involved in the initial drafting of the new immigration law signed last month by President George Bush to allow for the free flow of foreign workers into Guam and CNMI for the military build-up. 

The military expansion, according to DWT, is expected to bring “up to US$15 billion of US government defense expenditures to Guam and increase the island’s population by more than 25 percent.”

Although this is a hotly debated and sensitive issue in Guam and CNMI at the moment as there are implications that local population will be swamped, the build-up is expected to be of particular interest to investors.

“Yes, there’s a lot of interest in Guam and it’s something that a lot of companies are interested in because of the defense money that will flow in there. But we have a number of contacts that are interested in a number of different opportunities throughout the Pacific and we will continue to work with them,” said Cohen. 

“The other thing for us is probably trying to get access to Chinese investments into the Pacific,” said Ridgway.

“It’s a perfect opportunity for Pacific islands countries as well as DWT’s Shanghai office. And I think helping manage the existing investment in the region is also important; making sure that clients maintain confidence in the Pacific, even when there are difficulties in some parts.

“It’s also important to try to keep the big business names in the Pacific because that helps build external business confidence.”

DWT Pacific is also keenly eyeing other potential areas such as an expected takeoff in the Pacific’s telecommunication markets, investment interests in alternative energy projects, infrastructure projects and resort developments, to name a few. 

Ridgway said the new venture hoped the Pacific’s long known challenges in inter-island travel and high communication costs as well as the prevalent dated legal infrastructures would, in time, improve to make the region conducive to investment.

“Obviously, Digicel is helping out in the communication side of things. Virgin and PolyBlue in Samoa, that has fantastic results for Samoa. And Virgin flying to Fiji and Vanuatu...so things are improving and I think if you look back five years ago on those two important issues—travel and communication—things have moved a long way since then,” said Ridgway.

“In another five years time, things would hopefully be much better.”