In the first part of our inaugural broadcast of 2025, we’ll speak with lawyer and analyst Ross Feingold on the extraterritorial enforcement of US laws and regulations in the Asia-Pacific region as President Donald Trump returns to the White House on January 20. We’ll follow up on that with a chat with Hong Kong-based lawyer Ben Hammond about the city’s forthcoming Stablecoin law.

Ross Feingold is Head of Research at Caerus Consulting, a consultancy that advises clients on worldwide risk management. Admitted to practice law in New York and Washington, DC, he was previously an in-house counsel at the Royal Bank of Scotland, Deutsche Bank, and J.P. Morgan. Ross has lived in Asia for over twenty years—including in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taipei—and speaks fluent Mandarin.

He is also a lecturer and political analyst, a director of the Paris-based Association of American Residents Overseas, and, during his Hong Kong days, the Asia chairman of Republicans Abroad.

In this episode of Regulatory Ramblings, Ross speaks with host Ajay Shamdasani about the extraterritorial enforcement of US laws and regulations under the Trump administration, including sanctions and trade tariffs, with an eye toward the Asia-Pacific region.

With Donald Trump set to return to power shortly, many in this region are jittery about how he’ll handle his second time in the Oval Office. It’s an open question whether or not the Trump administration will increase legal and compliance costs for firms in Asia.

In the run-up to last November’s election, the president-elect threatened 60% tariffs on Chinese goods. He has since followed up by saying he would issue the first of “many” executive orders, including a 10% tariff on Chinese exports.

Worse still, President Trump threatened the BRICS nations should they move to undermine or dump the US dollar for trade purposes.

Ross shares his views on what the region’s banking and financial institutions and multinational corporations should expect from the new administration on the overseas enforcement front, including sanctions related to Iran and Russia and the ongoing chip and technology war between the US and China.

Reflecting on his experience as an in-house lawyer at some of the world’s most renowned banks, he also offers some suggestions for what general counsel and compliance officers in the region’s financial sector, especially, should be cognizant of when preparing for what the next iteration of the Trump administration might dish out.

A big part of that is Trump’s threat to take action against the BRICS nations should they undermine the role of the US dollar in international trade. While the greenback isn’t going away anytime soon, it’s unclear to what degree Trump will carry forward with his admonition.

Ben Hammond is the managing partner of the law firm Ashurst in Hong Kong. In this episode, he articulates his views on the city’s new Stablecoin Bill, which was gazetted on December 6, 2024, and had its first reading before the territory’s Legislative Council on December 18.

Hongkongers are getting closer to experiencing the many applications of stablecoins, from domestic payments to cross-border trade settlements as a bill covering the digital currency winds its way through the Legislative Council.

The Hong Kong government’s proposed Stablecoins Bill is approaching becoming law as the city seeks to balance financial stability and consumer protection while advancing its virtual assets agenda.

Stablecoins are digital assets issued by private entities that maintain a fixed value relative to a government-issued fiat currency or other reference rate. Generally, they have served as a bridge for transactions involving digital assets on blockchains, which cannot directly interact with fiat currencies.
​
Potential uses of stablecoins could include automating incentives, rebates, or loyalty points in digital wallets, like the Octopus program, by using their programmability or the ability to input rules and data in the blockchain.
​
Additionally, stablecoins can provide access to new investment avenues like tokenized funds, which use the blockchain for sales and redemptions, where assets under management are expected to climb to about US$600 billion in seven years from US$2 billion at the end of this year, according to a report from Aptos Labs, Boston Consulting Group, and Invesco.

Ben is also a partner in Ashurst’s financial services regulatory group, where he leads its non-contentious regulatory practice in the territory. He advises clients on a broad range of transactional and non-transactional regulatory areas.
​
With his extensive expertise in digital economy matters, Ben has advised clients across various regulatory areas. Most notably, in February 2023, he advised Goldman Sachs on using its tokenization platform, GS DAP™, to issue an HK$800 million tokenized green bond for the Hong Kong government—it was the first tokenized green bond issued by a government globally.
​
In February 2024, Ben led a team supporting HSBC as the platform provider to the Hong Kong Monetary Authority—the city’s banking regulator and de facto central bank—on the world’s first multi-currency “digitally native” bond offering.
​
Ben discusses his professional background and how he first became involved with digital assets. He delineates what to expect from the Special Administrative Region’s new stablecoin bill, why it is important, how it will move the industry forward, and why it took so long.

He also shares what the bill will mean from a regulatory perspective for legal, compliance, and risk staff at institutions dealing in such instruments and what value he believes lawyers add in such technology-oriented matters when most of them are not technically trained.

Regulatory Ramblings podcasts is brought to you by The University of Hong Kong – Reg/Tech Lab, HKU-SCF Fintech Academy, Asia Global Institute, and HKU-edX Professional Certificate in Fintech, with support from the HKU Faculty of Law.