Chinese distributors can help foreign companies reach customers without setting up a business in China. The wrong agreement can leave a supplier locked into years of poor sales, trademark disputes, or regulatory problems. Here are ten issues we address before a client signs.
A signed investment agreement with a Chinese investor does not guarantee the money will arrive. China’s new outbound investment rules make ODI approvals, foreign-exchange compliance, banking procedures, and funding risk central to the deal.
A signed “use it or lose it” vacation policy does not necessarily protect a foreign employer in China. Chinese law places responsibility on employers to calculate statutory annual leave, arrange time off, document refusals, and compensate employees for unused days. Getting these rules wrong can turn an ordinary employee departure into an expensive dispute.
China Exit Bans for Foreign Executives: The Commercial Dispute Risk Nobody Plans For You are at the airport with a boarding pass in hand, heading home after meetings. The China immigration officer scans your passport, pauses, types, and asks you to step aside. A few minutes later you are told you cannot leave China. No
Trump’s Asia Trip: What Changed in Law, What Didn’t, and How to Plan Your Supply Chain The short version President Trump’s trip produced three practical outcomes for companies that buy or sell internationally. First, the United States and Vietnam, and the United States and Thailand, announced trade deal frameworks that set baseline tariff rates and
FAQ: What Foreign Companies Need to Know About China’s 2025 Anti-Unfair Competition Law (AUCL) This post follows our comprehensive analysis of the 2025 AUCL reforms in “China’s 2025 AUCL: Executive Liability and Global Reach.” If you haven’t read it yet, start there. It explains the law’s long-arm reach, new personal liability for executives, and why
China’s 2025 Competition Law Creates Executive Liability and Extraterritorial Reach On October 15, 2025, China’s revised Anti-Unfair Competition Law (AUCL) will take effect, ushering in the most significant overhaul of China’s market regulation in nearly a decade. I began my legal career doing antitrust work at Kirkland & Ellis, so when China first rolled out
China’s New AI Labeling Rules: What Every China Business Needs to Know Is Your China Content Strategy About to Break? China is tightening its grip on digital business practices, especially those tied to social trust and content authenticity. If your company still treats China AI compliance as optional, you’re setting yourself up for major problems.
The China I Knew, the China That Is, and the China Yet to Come In 2000, if you were doing business in China, survival—let alone success—required being there. In person. In the factories. In the boardrooms. Because if you weren’t, your competitors were. China was booming, changing by the day, and for foreign companies in
We've advised hundreds of companies on how to navigate China safely and profitably. The strategies below reflect what’s working in 2025 for companies that want China market access without China market exposure. Six Smart Strategies for Selling to China Without Being in China Can you tap into China’s trillion-dollar consumer market—without opening a single office,
