International Law

Will the Real CIETAC Please Stand Up?

Posted on May 21, 2013
For more than a year, the China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission (CIETAC), China’s dominant arbitral institution since its founding in 1956, has been fighting a noisy and public civil war. The resulting chaos shows no signs of ending, and any company considering arbitration in China and any company that has an existing contract...

How To Protect Your Trademark In China; How To Stop Your Distributer From ?Stealing? Your Trademark

Posted on May 20, 2013
As often as we write about the need to register your trademarks in China, we have never written about how common it is for your China distributer to take your trademark and of how easy it is to prevent that.  I thought of this last week after receiving yet another phone call where this had...

How To Change Your WFOE Legal Representative. It Ain?t Easy?.

Posted on May 19, 2013
Over the years my law firm has been called in a number of times to try to get rid of an out of control Legal Representative of a WOFE.  Typically, the company calling us thinks that it ought to be able to rid itself of its WFOE Legal Representative simply by issuing a resolution making...

Doing Business In China. What?s Trust Got To Do With It?

Posted on May 17, 2013
A few weeks ago, I met with Scott Markman and John Yang of the Monogram Group, a Chicago advertising, branding, and market research company.  What differentiates the Monogram Group and what led to our meeting is their China practice, which they describe as follows: In 2007, Monogram established the first branding practice in the US...

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What Is Right With China?

Posted on May 17, 2013
If you haven’t been reading ChinaFile’s twice weekly “Conversation,” you should be.  It basically consists of a bunch of knowledgeable China people getting together and discussing one (usually deep think) China issue. I particularly liked the most recent one, the topic of which was “China: What’s Going Right?”  This conversation was with Michael Zhao, James...

China Importation 101. Part II.

Posted on May 15, 2013
China is evolving and certain things that were “no big deal” five years ago are a big deal now. Dealing with China customs law is a prime example of that. If you are a foreign company doing business in China that involves importing products into China (or exporting, but less so), it behooves you now...

Five Tips For Good Translations At Your China Meetings

Posted on May 14, 2013
Though Steve Barru only recently strated his China Business Hand Blog, I am already a big fan.  Steve is just back in the United States after 25 years in China and it would be no exageration to call him a China hand.  I spoke with Steve for a spell a few weeks ago and at the end...

Where To Form Your China WFOE? What?s Law Got To Do With It?

Posted on May 14, 2013
Twice in the last couple of months while working on registering WFOEs for clients, clients have come to us and asked our thoughts about switching their WFOE formation cities.  In both cases, their basis for questioning came from having heard that some nearby city was easier for a China WFOE formation and had better labor...

Legal Guides To China

Posted on May 13, 2013
Just got an email complimenting us for being on the US Library of Congress’s China section to its Guide to Law online.  This was actually news to us as was the existence of this site at all.  But present company excluded, its list of legal guides to China is a good one, and here it...

Think You Have A China Trademark Or China Company? Check Again.

Posted on May 12, 2013
A loyal reader sent me an article this morning regarding a Chinese citizen who had fabricated his ownership in a US bank and used that fabrication to gain power in his hometown. This happened about a year ago so not sure why it was sent to me today, but the reader sent it with a...

Protecting Against Trademark Infringement in China. The Basics For Fashion Apparel.

Posted on May 12, 2013
A few weeks ago, one of the lawyers in my office, emailed me an article co-written by a law school friend of hers.  The article was on trademark infringement in the clothing industry and on what clothing companies/fashion companies should do to protect their China trademarks, written by Yujing Shu and Hai-Ching Yang of KLGates...

Your China Contract Should Be In Chinese. Here?s Why.

Posted on May 11, 2013
It is widely believed by American lawyers that their clients should do whatever they can to avoid finding themselves in a Chinese court.  This widespread belief is usually wrong.  It is usually wrong because most of the time it is the American company that will want to sue the Chinese company, not vice-versa...

China Importation 101

Posted on May 09, 2013
China is evolving and certain things that were “no big deal” five years ago are a big deal now.  Dealing with China customs law is a prime example of that.  My law firm does not generally handle routine customs matters, believing that they are better left to non-lawyers who specialize in that; it just usually...

China Contract Drafting Using Ken Adams? A Manual Of Style For Contract Drafting

Posted on May 08, 2013
Though most of the contracts my law firm writes for our China clients are in Chinese, the first draft is virtually always in English (though sometimes they are in Spanish, Russian, German or Korean).  We draft the contract in English and provide that draft to the client for their review...

Is China Really Innovating? The China Licensing Numbers Say No.

Posted on May 07, 2013
Those who say China is innovating often cite to the massive numbers of IP filings being made by Chinese companies in China.  I use those numbers to counter those who allege that filing trademarks, copyrights and patents in China is a waste of time, but I do not think they show much regarding innovation...

How To Negotiate With Chinese Companies. You Are The Cow And Here?s How To Avoid Getting Milked.

Posted on May 06, 2013
I see it all the time and there is very little I can do about it beyond suggesting that maybe they be tougher. The “they” are my law firm’s clients and the “it” is entering into a service contract with a Chinese company based on the belief that “it will all work out in the...

Have A Problem With Your China Counterparty? DO NOT Go Visit Them.

Posted on May 06, 2013
A few weeks ago, a China risk consultancy contacted us regarding their own China legal matter.  During our conversation, the caller went off and said that he really liked our posts on how to avoid getting kidnapped in China.  He then told me that so far this year, not a single week had passed without...

China Has Become So Popular, Nobody Goes There Anymore.

Posted on May 06, 2013
I spent much of last week in Chicago meeting with “China people” and “talking China” and I left there with one inescapable conclusion:  China is changing.  No drum roll please. Of course China is changing you are saying, but how?  The conclusion is that China is getting more difficult for foreign companies, but why and...

China Non-Competes. The Basics Have Become Clearer.

Posted on May 04, 2013
Earlier this year, China’s Supreme People?s Court of China promulgated various interpretations of various employment law issues.  These interpretations were intended to clarify and for the most part, they did.  In particular, what was once unclear about non-competes signed by China employees has now become much clearer...

The How Comes Of China Law Blog

Posted on May 03, 2013
I have always hated book and movie reviews that focus on what the book or movie should have been about, but wasn’t.  For example, the movie Lincoln, which I loved, took heat from some critics for not focusing nearly enough on the conditions of slavery, as opposed to its abolition...

Choosing A China OEM Manufacturer: A Practical Guide

Posted on May 02, 2013
In a post last week, How To Find Your China Manufacturer,  Dan discussed some of the issues involved in choosing a China OEM manufacturer. I have been involved in this process on the ground in China for more than twenty years and I have developed some of my own standard practices for this...

Will China Avoid The Middle Income Trap? Four Ways To Make That Likely

Posted on April 30, 2013
I am fascinated by the “Middle-Income Trap,” particularly as it applies to China. The Middle Income Trap is used to describe a developing economy that stalls out after a period of rapid growth before it becomes a developed economy.  My shorthand view of it is that it is relatively easy to go from being an...

US Exports To China. Catch That Train Before It Leaves The Station.

Posted on April 28, 2013
Whenever a client decides not to venture forward (those words intentionally chosen) overseas in a situation where I am convinced that it should, I get frustrated.  I get particularly frustrated if the client says that it “hasn’t ruled out the move, but it is going to table it for a while...

China Intellectual Property Law. A Radio Interview For World Intellectual Property Rights Day

Posted on April 27, 2013
I have to admit that one of the things I love about both China and Russia is that they take various international days seriously, that nobody even knows about in the United States.  I suspect that is due to communism and/or its remnants.  Anyway, as part of today’s World Intellectual Property Rights Day (how many...

How To Find Your China Manufacturer

Posted on April 26, 2013
Whenever I give a speech or write an article or post about what it takes to succeed in China, I invariably list “a good Chinese partner” as item one.  Perhaps not surprisingly, I am always getting asked how to find the “good Chinese partner” to which I am always referring...

China Is Getting Tougher On Foreign Business. Stay Flexible And It Will Be Just Fine?

Posted on April 25, 2013
One of the themes of this blog for years has been that China is making things tougher for foreign businesses by increasing the strength of its business laws and by stepping up its enforcement of them against foreign companies.  We hear that the same thing is happening to Chinese domestic companies, but starting from a...

The Three Rules For Your China Contract

Posted on April 24, 2013
In several recent posts (see here and here), I have stressed that written contracts are the key to the next wave of doing business in China. I mentioned that relying on written contracts now makes sense in China because of the major improvements in the legal system that have been implemented in China over the past...

Ancient Chinese Business Scam With A New Hollywood Twist. It?s Baaaack.

Posted on April 24, 2013
About a year ago, in Ancient China Business Scam With A New Hollywood Twist, we wrote of how we were hearing about film and media companies getting hit with an old-fashioned scam from China.  Things then went quiet for a while, but in the last month, we have received two emails from two US film companies seeking...

Legal Protection In Fashion (China Too). A Panel Discussion.

Posted on April 24, 2013
Tomorrow morning (Thursday, April 25), from 11:15 a.m. until 12:45 p.m. there will be a panel discussion at the Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle on “Legal Protection in Fashion.” Because so much clothing and footwear is being made in China and Southeast Asia, there will no doubt be discussion regarding fashion companies protecting...

Improving The Global Supply Chain: Create.Org

Posted on April 23, 2013
A few weeks ago, I met with Pamela Passman, President and CEO of The Center for Responsible Enterprise And Trade (CREATe.org), “a non-profit organization dedicated to helping companies and their suppliers and business partners reduce counterfeiting, piracy, trade secret theft and corruption...

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