Dear WSG Members,

Happy New Year to all! As 2018 begins, I am pleased to report to you that World Services Group continues to thrive.

As I mentioned in my last update, building our brand awareness is one of our key goals for the organization. In this connection, I am glad to report that we had a very successful webinar together with Bloomberg in November on Ensuring Data Protection in Cross-Border M&A. This event was very well received and is part of our ongoing partnership with Bloomberg. If you missed this event, the webinar may still be viewed on our website.

We are looking forward to an outstanding year of key meetings in 2018. Our first regional meeting will be the Meeting of the Americas meeting in New York from February 28 to March 1 hosted by Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler, LLP; followed by our Asia Pacific Regional Meeting in Manila On March 13 and 14 hosted by SyCip Salazar Hernandez & Gatmaitan. Our European Regional Meeting will be in Tallinn, Estonia on May 02-03 and will be hosted by COBALT Estonia, and, as you know, our Annual Meeting this year will be in the Bahamas on September 19 to 21 hosted by Graham Thompson. Attending meetings is one of the main ways to get the maximum benefit out of WSG and I hope you will attend the regional meeting in your part of the world as well as the Annual Meeting.

Our recruiting efforts continue with considerable success and we expect to approve some new members at the Board meeting to be held in conjunction with the Meeting of the Americas at the end of February. As always, we welcome and encourage your suggestions for potential members in those few jurisdictions where we do not currently have any member firm.

On behalf of our Executive Committee and the WSG Board of Directors, I wish you all the best in both your professional and personal life in 2018, and I encourage all of our members to take advantage of WSG�s many benefits.

Sincerely,

Mark J. Harty
Chairman
World Services Group