The party is over for an increasing number of U.S. companies who danced with China’s communist rulers. Their giddy, devil-may-care pursuit of the China Price has now devolved into the dystopia of “Uyghurs for sale”. See China’s Other Supply Chain Infection — Forced Labor. When someone finally listened to their complaints about IP theft, the
Yesterday, a long-term European client of ours asked me about the state of manufacturing in China. In response I asked him if he wanted the long or the short version. When he replied, “short,” my response was “really mixed, but overall really bad.” He then asked me to give him the short version how foreign
The below post was written by one of our China lawyers who wishes to remain anonymous for fear of what might happen to him/her the next time he/she goes to China. So my name is going on this because I wrote the introduction and I have no plans to go to China until the CCP
Both here on the blog and in real life with our clients, our China lawyers are always touting the benefits of licensing products, intellectual property, brands, technology and content to China. Licensing deals make sense under many circumstances, but they make particular sense in situations where it is difficult or impossible to get your product,
Way back in the pre-coronavirus days — October 30-2019 — in Do Not Let Force Majeure be a Major Force In Your China Contract, we did a post warning of force majeure provisions in contracts with Chinese companies. That post began with the following warning/joke; Pull out and look at your contract with your Chinese
Many months ago, an American company emailed me in a panic after reading a Linkedin post “your law firm” wrote on the need to register your brand name as a trademark in China as soon as possible. This company and I corresponded back and forth about why securing trademarks in China is so important and
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
The issue of forced labor in China has been in the news recently. In part, this is due to the connection between this issue and the larger human rights crisis in Xinjiang. However, forced labor is hardly a problem confined to Xinjiang, as a recent scandal involving British supermarket chain Tesco shows. Last month, Tesco
A few days ago, in China Manufacturing: “Elvis Has Left the Building”, we mentioned a South China Morning Post article suggesting the manufacturing exodus from China will not abate, regardless of any patches trade negotiators manage to place on the overall, strained U.S.-China relationship. That article included some sobering stats on the giant sucking sound we
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,
