When Your Contract Will Not Save You in a Cross-Border Credit Dispute A U.S. company recently lost more than $860,000 to a foreign client. It had a signed contract, invoices, and legal remedies. That still was not enough. The contract was not the real problem. The company extended too much unsecured credit, dealt with the

Can You Subpoena a Chinese Company? What You Need to Know About China Discovery In cross-border litigation involving mainland China-based defendants, U.S. litigation lawyers often mistake the ability to issue a subpoena for the ability to enforce it. A subpoena backed by a U.S. court carries real consequences inside the United States, but it has

Enforcing U.S. Judgments in China: What Judgment Creditors Need to Know For years, the standard advice about enforcing U.S. judgments in China was simple: don’t bother. That advice is now outdated. It is still not easy or inexpensive to enforce a U.S. court judgment in China. And it is also far from automatic. But Chinese

International Litigation: Winning the Lawsuit Is Often the Easy Part Companies often go into international litigation asking the wrong first question: can we win? That matters, of course. But in many cross-border disputes, it is not the most important question. The more important question is whether winning will ever lead to money. Our international dispute

International Arbitration in Cross-Border Contracts: What Companies Get Wrong An industrial pump company signs a supply agreement with an overseas supplier, receives eight million dollars’ worth of defective goods, and does what seems logical: it sues in the supplier’s home court. Five years later, it has spent more on legal fees than the amount in

Why Demand Letters to China Suppliers Often Backfire Sending a quick demand letter to a China supplier can destroy your leverage. Twice last week, I had to explain that to companies that were not clients. Both wanted me to immediately send a demand letter to their China suppliers to force shipment of long-delayed product. I

Why International Arbitration Is the Cornerstone of Modern Global Risk Management The Global Business Reality: Cross-Border Disputes Destroy Deals Imagine a multinational manufacturer that spends almost five years caught in a foreign court system trying to recover a 2.5 million-dollar debt. By the time the case has crawled through local procedure and appeals, the company

Serving Process on Chinese Defendants: Hague Service in China and the New Rules on Judgment Enforcement An American company spent years litigating a breach of contract case against a Shenzhen supplier. They won. Then a Chinese court refused to recognize and enforce the judgment because service of process was invalid under the Hague Service Convention.