1. Selling Your Products on Chinese E-Commerce Sites With China accounting for half of the e-commerce transactions in the world, non-Chinese companies are enjoying some of the spoils. According to Alibaba, U.S. companies sold $5.4 billion in goods on its sites during the recent Singles' Day shopathon. This success is partly due to Alibaba's own
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.
On December 2, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) issued a withhold release order (WRO) against cotton and cotton products made by the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC). XPCC has been described as a "state within a state," which "functions like a government in running schools, policing and health care facilities across a number
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
George Santayana once said: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”? Although the line was not about Chinese trademark law, it might as well have been. We have been beating the drum for years about registering trademarks in China (see here and here for a representative sample), but every time I start
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
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
Lately we have seen an uptick in international M&A work – some of it from China, some of it to China, some with other China alternative countries, like India and Malaysia, and some of it within the U.S. relating to U.S. subsidiaries owned by foreign companies. This increase coincides both with the world partially thawing
As part of our China employment work, our China employment lawyers are often tasked with helping expats navigate the China employee onboarding process, including reviewing and revising their employment-related documents, such as employment contracts. This involves our making sure our clients' contracts protect their interests and achieve their goals and minimize the likelihood of confusion
As reported in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), Stanley Black & Decker has closed its Shenzhen factory, "[laying] off all of its 1,000 workers after 25 years of operations." This, according to the SCMP, "reflects the changing business environment in the world’s second-biggest economy." In reality, however, it highlights long-standing, ongoing China risks. Stanley
