Dan Harris is a founding member of Harris Sliwoski, an international law firm where he mostly represents companies doing business in emerging market countries. Most of his time is spent helping American and European companies navigate foreign countries by working with the international lawyers at his firm in setting up companies overseas (WFOEs, Subsidiaries, Rep Offices and Joint Ventures), drafting international contracts, protecting IP, and overseeing M&A transactions.
In addition, Dan writes and speaks extensively on international law, with a focus on protecting foreign businesses in their overseas operations. He is also a prolific and widely-followed blogger, writing as the co-author of the award-winning China Law Blog.
The Hong Kong Intermediary Trap: Do Not Contract with the Wrong China Company Foreign buyers like dealing with Hong Kong intermediaries. The emails are clear, the invoices look familiar, the bank account feels safer, and the person on the other end usually speaks better English than the factory contact. But in China manufacturing, invoices are
China Supply Chain Restructuring: Legal Traps in Moving, Selling, or Exiting China A U.S. manufacturer decides to move production from China to Mexico. The company's technical team starts shipping over production files and the company opens early talks with a Chinese buyer for the plant. The move looks routine. Then the files raise an export-control
When Your Contract Will Not Save You in a Cross-Border Credit Dispute A U.S. company recently lost more than $860,000 to a foreign client. It had a signed contract, invoices, and legal remedies. That still was not enough. The contract was not the real problem. The company extended too much unsecured credit, dealt with the
Can You Subpoena a Chinese Company? What You Need to Know About China Discovery In cross-border litigation involving mainland China-based defendants, U.S. litigation lawyers often mistake the ability to issue a subpoena for the ability to enforce it. A subpoena backed by a U.S. court carries real consequences inside the United States, but it has
China Manufacturing Contracts: Why U.S. Drafts Do Not Work Clients often send us a U.S. manufacturing agreement and ask whether it can save time or money on a China manufacturing contract. It cannot. Sometimes the ask is smaller: can we just spend a couple of hours reviewing it? We decline because we will not bill
Sinosure Claims: Why Foreign Buyers Need More Than a Quick Consultation Why Sinosure Matters Are Different A Sinosure claim is not just an unpaid invoice. By the time most companies contact us, they have usually already lost ground they cannot easily recover. The setup looks simple: a Chinese supplier claims a foreign buyer failed to
Enforcing U.S. Judgments in China: What Judgment Creditors Need to Know For years, the standard advice about enforcing U.S. judgments in China was simple: don’t bother. That advice is now outdated. It is still not easy or inexpensive to enforce a U.S. court judgment in China. And it is also far from automatic. But Chinese
China Manufacturing Contracts: When One Agreement Is Not Enough A U.S. company recently called one of our international dispute resolution lawyers after receiving a message from its Chinese factory. Future orders, the factory said, would require a 34% price increase, effective immediately. The factory had the client's molds. It had the client's designs. And it
China’s New Supply Chain Security Rules Raise the Risks for Foreign Companies On April 7, 2026, China turned supply chain decisions into national security decisions. The regulations took effect the same day. No transition period. These regulations, issued as State Council Order No. 834, give Chinese authorities a formal mechanism to investigate and punish foreign
f you think China’s new trade secret rules mean you can rely less on contracts, you’re making a costly mistake. Laws don’t enforce themselves. Contracts still do the heavy lifting.
