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.
One of the things I’ve done since the inception of this blog is try to help young people in trouble in China. Mostly this has involved my telling thousands of English teachers NOT to cause a stink with their employers that have not paid them. I tell them I understand why they are angering at
When someone emails one of our international manufacturing lawyers asking us what they should be considering to protect themselves when manufacturing overseas, we typically respond with something like the following: Our clients that manufacture product in China/Vietnam/Mexico/India/Thailand/Taiwan/Malysia (or wherever it is they are asking about) typically use us for some or all of the following
I saw a Teams chat the other day between one of our international manufacturing lawyers and one of our corporate lawyers. The corporate lawyer had posted a request for an example of a product development contract because one of her American clients was going to be working with another U.S. company to develop a product.
Operating overseas is always difficult. Companies that start out in a new country rarely know the culture or the laws or the rules or the people that can be the deciders between success and failure. It is of course possible to bring in good people who know all of these things, but that can be
Got an email the other day enclosing a link to a Globe and Mail article, Vancouver miner says China trying to steal Xinjiang gold mine, and stating the following: I literally chuckled when I read this. Only for the reason that it pretty much checked off every point you have warned about. They certainly would
Got an email from an American client this morning asking me whether I was aware of how American companies that do “significant” business with China cannot receive Paycheck Protection Program (PPP2) loans. I replied that I was not, because my focus is not on domestic U.S. law or business. But then I started thinking more
1. Sorry, But Overseas Factory Problems are Likely YOUR Fault The genesis for this post is an excellent post written by Renaud Anjoran and a series of Linkedin comments on that post. The post is on Renaud’s Quality Inspection Blog and it’s called 28 Common Problems Chinese Suppliers Cause Importers. Renaud is the long-term owner of
1. LaoWhy86 on YouTube Spent the last few days catching up on my China reading and viewing, mostly those articles and videos friends, clients and readers wrote me insisting I read. One of the sites I checked out — at the recommendation of many people — is LaoWhy86 on YouTube. I’m hooked LaoWhy86 is an
1. Chinese Manufacturers Will Copy and Sell Your Products; It’s What They Do Literally every single day this past week, the international IP lawyers at my law firm received at least one email from an American/European/Australasian company on how their Chinese manufacturer was selling their products at wholesale and/or at retail to others. These emails
Going through old emails and found an email from one of our international manufacturing lawyers to a client that needed help drafting up a term sheet for one of its suppliers that had agreed to grant it an exclusive on various products. I have modified the email slightly to remove any potential identifiers and I
