The goal of this post is to start a discussion on how and why to diversify away from China. Does a China plus one strategy make sense and if so, why? Earlier this week, I wrote an article, China Plus One: How Vietnam’s Riots Help American Businesses, the theme of which is that Vietnam --
The Three Fundamental Rules for China Contracts To ensure that your contracts are enforceable in China, it is important that they adhere to these three fundamental rules: Jurisdiction: Always specify a court within China for resolving legal disputes. Governing Law: Ensure that Chinese laws govern the contract. Language: Use Mandarin Chinese as the official language
The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) enforces U.S. economic and trade sanctions. OFAC sanctions generally block all U.S. individuals and entities – including in some cases U.S. companies’ foreign subsidiaries – from transacting business with comprehensively sanctioned countries, such as Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, and Syria, or sanctioned
A technology company contacted one of our China lawyers months after having started selling its software into China. This company came to us seeking help in deciding whether to continue selling its software from the United States or to form a China WFOE and start selling through that entity. The first thing we told this
My friend Kent Kedl co-wrote an article for the Moscow Times today, entitled, Why Russia Is Just as Good as China, claiming businesses should be just as interested in Russia as they are in China and that corruption in Russia is no better or worse than corruption in China: For some reason, investors find Russian corruption
One of the most frustrating things about doing business in China is the paper work. I was cc'ed on an email the other day from one of our China company formation lawyers to one of our clients. The client had signed the documents required for a WFOE by ink that looked like the required ink,
Our China company formation lawyers spoke with a software company the other day with fifteen "independent contractors" in China they view as "part of the corporate family." This company was looking to form a WFOE in China, but they said they were in no rush. The first thing we did was tell them that what
A reader sent me a link to a report on Media Piracy in Emerging Economies. The report, put out by the American Assembly at Columbia University, "is the first independent, large-scale study of music, film and software piracy in emerging economies, with a focus on Brazil, India, Russia, South Africa, Mexico and Bolivia." It is
With the US Supreme Court recently holding the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) unconstitutional, the writing is pretty much on the wall that gay marriage will be legal in all or most of the United States within five to ten years. What about China? How does China view gays and gay marriage? For answers to
VIE stands for variable interest entity and they are entities used to allow a company in China to technically be a Chinese domestic company, but be de facto controlled by a foreign-owned entity or entities. VIE structures are usually used to allow foreign companies to get involved in various sectors of China's economy forbidden to
