China Law Professor Donald Clarke sent me a great article this week from New York Magazine, entitled, How China Drove Out Mister Softee. Professor Clarke's email with the link said the following: Thought you might like this. Interestingly, it is NOT a story of “guy skirts rules, naively trusts Chinese partner, gets screwed.” It’s “guy does
Though we've written about this many times previously, I'm writing about it again today because my law firm's China lawyers have been seeing a lot more of this lately, especially as against European companies. We have been getting a number of emails lately from companies asking us if what their Chinese counter-parties are asking them
In the past few months, our China lawyers have been seeing something new and troubling with China licensing agreements. Before I explain, let me step back and give a bit of history. This post is important so please stay with me. In a typical China licensing deal the foreign licensor grants the Chinese licensee the
Not surprisingly, our China lawyers are seeing a massive increase in foreign companies seeking to reduce or eliminate their China ties. Many are seeking to terminate their relationship with their Chinese suppliers and move production elsewhere (so far, it's been mostly to Vietnam, Taiwan, Poland, Thailand, Mexico, Brazil, India and Malaysia). The other day I
If I were to list the ten biggest/most common mistakes my law firm's China lawyers see, not forming a China subsidiary when necessary and forming a China subsidiary when not unnecessary would both be on that list. We write constantly about the risks of doing business in China without a subisidiary. See Doing Business in
With the recent onslaught of tariffs, our international manufacturing lawyers are increasingly drafting manufacturing contracts for Asian countries beyond China. In the last few weeks alone, we've drafted manufacturing contracts for Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Taiwan, and India. We also have seen a noticeable uptick in our Mexico contracts as well. One of the issues our
Everything China comes in waves and China trademark "theft" is no different. When we first started this blog back in 2006, we would get a call just about every week from someone wanting to sue a Chinese company blocking the company's product from leaving China. We hated those calls because most of the time our
China manufacturing contracts are very different from Western manufacturing contracts, for reasons which stem from differences in laws or differences in economics. This means our China manufacturing lawyers often must explain why they are doing something in China manufacturing so different from the way the client "always does it" in the West. One of the
A lawyer friend of mine emailed me a link the other day that had been sent to him by one of his clients. The link was to an article written nearly two years ago, China Supplier Vetting, Part 1: Background Checks, and he wanted my opinion on it. I responded by telling my friend that
Our China business lawyers see 5-10 China contracts a month written by others. We often are sent these from a potential or actual client who wants us to review and revise their contract or determine how it might fare were they to pursue a breach of contract claim. Other times, we get them simply because
