The China Law Blog focuses on the practical aspects of Chinese law and how it impacts foreign companies that do business in or with China. The goal is to help readers understand what works and what does not work and what businesspeople can do to use the law to their advantage. China Law Blog's aim is to assist businesses already in China or planning to go into China, not to break new ground in legal theory or policy.
In my last post regarding PPE, I discussed the normalization of the Chinese N95 mask market, the increasing insanity of the Malaysian nitrile glove market, and other market forces at work, including limitations based on shipping container shortages and financing troubles. In this post I will provide some additional insights our international PPE lawyers have
As the PRC plans for the next decade of Xi Jinping rule, economic planning is at the forefront. Xi Jinping's core policy for that decade is his new concept of dual circulation 双循环. The concept is that for economic development China must rely both on domestic economic development and on China's participation in the international
Are Your International Contracts Built to Fail? With the diversification of supply chains, businesses more often must navigate countries with unpredictable legal systems. This post explains how to create strong contracts for countries with weak contract enforcement. Three Common International Contract Mistakes Over-reliance on Arbitration: Arbitration in a neutral country often does not provide the
Trademarks are not limited to words or drawings and can include sensory marks such as colors, smells and sounds. In the US, the USPTO recognizes sounds as trademarks if the sounds make you think of a company’s product or service. MGM’s roaring lion, Homer Simpson’s D’OH, and 20th Century Fox’s fanfare are all famous sounds
U.S. companies’ relationships with their Chinese business partners have been strained in the past year, and that has only accelerated the past few months, as we have noted in prior blog posts (see The US-China Trade War: What’s Next?, When Will the US-China Trade War End? It’s the New Normal, and The US-China Trade War:
When foreign buyers purchase products from Chinese factories the big issue is usually who owns the design of the product. This issue is often discussed in a theoretical way, based on intellectual property law principles, without getting to the real point. You are having a product made at Chinese Factory A. You decide the price
If you are going to manufacture your products in Asia, you need to register your brand name and your logo as a trademark in whatever Asian country you are doing your manufacturing. And as we have been saying for years and years, there are no ifs ands or buts about this. But in addition to the
1. The Product Development Stage is the Riskiest Stage of Manufacturing Companies doing overseas contract manufacturing often "co-develop" products with their overseas manufacturers. In some cases, the company seeking a manufacturer has completed product development and the only involvement from the manufacturer will be to figure out how to manufacture the product at high volumes.
Our international lawyers have been getting an increasing amount of work involving the provision of services across borders. International service agreements are more complicated than international product sales agreements because they typically involve an ongoing and more amorphous relationship without easily definable deliverables. It is easier to write a contract to buy 1,000 widgets from
As China steps up its tax enforcement against both foreign companies and foreigners, we are seeing increasing instances where expat employees working in China are having their salaries "split" by their Chinese or foreign company employers. We strongly counsel our employer clients against doing this sort of salary splitting and we even more strongly counsel
