A team of lawyers from Isle of Man-based Cains has played a major role in social networking site LinkedIn launching a Chinese language version of its website.

The team, headed by director Tristan Head, provided legal assistance in connection with LinkedIn Corporation’s formation of an Isle of Man company (LinkedIn CN Ltd) to establish a joint venture with venture capital funds Sequoia China and China Broadband Capital in the launch of a professional network in the People’s Republic of China.

“We are delighted to have been able to assist LinkedIn with the Isle of Man aspects of this transaction,” said Mr Head.  “Although the parties involved were located in a number of different time zones – including California and Beijing – the Isle of Man proved to be well positioned to enable us to service the needs of both our client in Silicon Valley and our counterparts in Beijing.”

In addition to Cains, Shearman & Sterling LLP, O’Melveny & Myers LLP and TransAsia Lawyers advised on the transaction.
Atlas Corporate Services Ltd acts as the registered agent of LinkedIn CN Ltd.  “It is a great pleasure to be working with a dynamic and innovative company like LinkedIn and is very gratifying that an Isle of Man company was selected as an appropriate vehicle for this exciting joint venture,” said managing director Stockton Birthisel.

LinkedIn has more than four million members in China using its English website.  According to chief executive officer Jeff Weiner in a post on the company’s official blog it is targeting “the country’s more than 140 million professionals who currently represent roughly one in five of the world’s knowledge workers”.

Derek Shen, president of LinkedIn China introduced the Chinese site in a post on LinkedIn’s  official blog and added: “We are actually in a start-up phase in the country right now.”

China’s online population rose to 618 million by the end of 2013, according to the latest statistics from the China Internet Network Information Center.

Tristan Head, a director of Cains.