Foreign Contractors and Distributors: The International Sales Shortcut That Often Backfires Many companies want foreign sales without a foreign footprint: no subsidiary, no payroll, no local employees, no leased office, no permanent commitment. That can be a sensible way to test a market. But for many businesses, that first move into international sales is also
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
If your products are made in China and exported from there, your trademarks are already exposed. For many companies, the real risk is not selling in China. It is someone else registering the mark first and using that registration to disrupt manufacturing or exports.
A U.S. subpoena has no direct force in mainland China, and obtaining documents or witness testimony there can be difficult. Learn what U.S. courts can compel, how Chinese law restricts discovery and depositions, and how to build a strong case using evidence available outside China.
China Manufacturing Contracts: Why Your Draft Does 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
Trademark Squatters Are Coming for Your Supply Chain in Swarms Now For years, trademark squatters followed the same general script. They would identify a foreign brand that had not yet registered its trademark in China, the United States, or another key market. Then they would file first and wait. Eventually, the legitimate brand owner would
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
