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
To describe employer and employee taxes in China as complicated is an understatement. My law firm usually advices our clients to secure bookkeeping/accounting assistance for this and we do not get much involved with calculating these figures. However, a client of ours for whom we are handling a number of China employment law matters requested
Just updated our research regarding China Representative Office rules relating to employees and note the following. Q. How many foreigners can work for the Rep Office? What is the proper term for referring to these employees? A. A Rep Office may hire no more than four foreign persons, each of whom is called a representative.
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,
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
Companies seeking to form a China WFOE are often confused about WFOE minimum registered capital requirements. Part of the confusion stems from disreputable entity formation companies that claim to know exactly how much will be required and boast of their ability to get the Chinese government to agree to a low amount. Under Chinese law,
One of my law firm’s international trade lawyers recently got an email from a company that was having a problem with one of its employees. This employee had left the company and at that moment the company realized it should have made this employee sign various trade secret agreements long ago. They came to us
It Ain’t Easy Leaving China There is a long line of foreign companies looking to get out of China. These companies call the China lawyers at my law firm expecting their leaving China will consist of little more than flipping a switch and waving goodbye. But this being China, nothing could be further from the
Our China lawyers have seen a spike in queries from foreign companies not getting paid by private Chinese companies without affiliates or assets abroad. The Chinese company’s excuse for not paying is often “that the rules have recently changed so foreign payments are no longer possible.” Another one is that the Chinese company is simply
We have been drafting an increasing number of contracts for foreign companies licensing their concept or technology for use in China. In the old days, this type of licensing was primarily in the industrial sector. These days, much of our work has involved licensing agreements for companies that want to capture China business without having
