For more than a year we’ve been relentlessly writing about how China has become so much riskier for manufacturing and how so many companies that manufacture in China are desperately looking to move their manufacturing elsewhere. I predict that at least 50 percent of the American and European companies that do all of their manufacturing
For the last week or so, our China lawyers have been inundated by requests from employers in China for help in dealing with the many employment law issues created by the coronavirus has created. Just yesterday, we wrote about that in Coronavirus and What China Employers Should be Doing (and Not Doing) Now. Our China
Our international dispute resolution lawyers are involved in multiple cross border litigation matters hit hard by the coronavirus. By way of one example, depositions scheduled for Chinese witnesses are having to be cancelled for the following reasons (among others): The coronavirus is impacting pretty much everyone in China. Travel within China is impossible for some and
Foreign companies doing business in China fairly often ask our China employment lawyers whether they can legally hire someone who has passed the legal retirement age. The short answer is that doing so is legal, but somewhat complicated. Consider this hypothetical. Employer employs Employee (male) for several years. Employee turns 60, the statutory retirement age,
In August, in The Top 14 China Wild Cards/Future Risks, we listed what we saw as the top 14 risks for foreign companies that do business in or with China. We first listed what we saw as the top six risks “right now,” and we then listed eight more risks we thought might rise to
Hello Macau, goodbye Hong Kong. This has been the main theme surrounding Chairman Xi Jinping’s visit to Macau to mark the 20th anniversary of the former Portuguese colony’s transfer of sovereignty to China. Besides sending a not-so-subtle message to “bad student” Hong Kong, Xi is “expected to announce new policies aimed at diversifying the casino
There is an old saying how lawyers do well in good times and in bad times; just not when everything stays the same. Times are mostly bad right now with China, and our China lawyers have in 2019 seen and likely will continue to see in 2020 a lot of the following: 1. China is cracking
The US-China Trade War is and will be the new normal. Relations between the EU and China are soomewhat better, but those are quickly getting worse as well. If you are doing business in China or with China you should at least once every day look in a mirror and say this: Relations between
No sooner than President Trump signed the Hong Kong human rights and democracy act into law, China announced retaliatory measures, banning U.S. warships from Hong Kong and restricting the work of American NGOs. These responses were narrowly tailored—perhaps in part because China is wary of rocking the boat too much, in a way that could
Had lunch yesterday with two long-time friends, both international lawyers who have spent many years living and working in China. During a discussion about an international real estate matter on which one of the lawyers was working, someone asked if we remembered back when foreigners were able to freely buy real estate in China. We all
