Ansley back from China to practice law in C.V.

By Susan Quinn
Record Assistant Editor

Lawyer Clive Ansley has pulled up his longtime roots in China and planted himself in the Comox Valley with the new litigation firm, Arvay Finlay. With his new practice, Ansley hopes to attract more Asian business ventures to the Comox Valley.

Arvay Finlay - a prominent law firm with headquarters in the Comox Valley opened an office at 211C - 750 Comox Road in Courtenay (near Royal LePage), and will hold its grand opening this Friday, June 27 with an open house and official ceremony. Arvay Finlay's Courtenay branch will practice in co-operation with Finkelstein/Associates, which has operated in Courtenay since 1996.

Ansley has spent the past seven summers holidaying in the Comox Valley and owns property along the water north of Courtenay. He returned to the Valley for good in late May and, after a self-imposed quarantine because of concern over the SARS virus in Asia, he has begun practicing law in Canada again.

"I'm very excited just about being here," Ansley said. "This place is absolute paradise."

Ansley said he decided to move his business to the Comox Valley because "I love this place and I'm not a big city person. I've spent the last 20 years in Taipei and Shanghai living with the things I don't like (about cities)," he said.
Ansley spent 20 years delving into corporate commercial law (mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, construction and ship building contracts) and maritime law (representing foreign ship owners in China) in Taipei and Shanghai. A former professor of Chinese studies and Chinese law in Canada, in 1985 Ansley became the first foreign lawyer to open a law office in Shanghai (for the Vancouver firm of Bull, Housser & Tupper, which he represented in Asia for 17 years).

Since that time Ansley, who speaks fluent Mandarin, has litigated more cases in China than any other foreign lawyer.
In Courtenay, Ansley will be working with one of the Arvay Finlay partners on anti-dumping cases (Chinese exporters accused of dumping their products in Canada). He'll also be doing a fair bit of immigration work, he said: both business immigration and political refugees.

With the support of the Comox Valley Economic Development Commission, which has conducted trade missions to Taiwan in the past, the Comox Valley is a prime location for foreign business, he said.

There are already four Taiwanese business investments that have relocated to the Comox Valley over the years - two sawmills, a water bottling plant in Fanny Bay and a wasabi farm. Collectively they employ approximately 200 people locally.

"There's a significant (Asian) population now, a growing population now in Courtenay," Ansley said. According to the 1996 census, there were at least 225 people who indicated that Chinese was their first language, and 175 that indicated Vietnamese as their first language. That compares to only 41 that indicated French was their official first language, he said.

In addition to Ansley, there are two other people at Arvay Finlay who speak Chinese, making the Courtenay branch the only law office on Vancouver Island capable of delivering legal services in Chinese.

One of the other people who speak Chinese at Arvay Finlay is Maggie Ma, who served as Ansley's executive assistant and office manager in Shanghai for more than five years (she also put herself in voluntary quarantine upon her arrival from Shanghai).

Ansley is quick to point out that in addition to his China-based clientele, he also works with people and businesses in North America, Germany, the United Kingdom, Norway, Sweden and Japan. With the advent of e-mail, fax machines and the Internet, moving to another continent will not hurt his business.

"Basically one can run many businesses from anywhere on the face of the earth - it doesn't matter where you are," he said.

Ansley has clients in London, for example, who have decided to keep their business with him; they prefer to correspond electronically. "I am almost exactly as close to them now, sitting in Courtenay, as I was sitting in Shanghai," he said.