China’s labor law provides for a 44-hour work week, but its regulations provide for a 40 hour work week and most municipalities enforce the 40-hour work week, but recognize that this workweek may not be practical for certain employees. A “flexible” working hours system is thus permitted for “senior management” as an exception to this
The goal of this post is to start a discussion on how and why to diversify away from China. Does a China plus one strategy make sense and if so, why? Earlier this week, I wrote an article, China Plus One: How Vietnam’s Riots Help American Businesses, the theme of which is that Vietnam —
The Three Fundamental Rules for China Contracts To ensure that your contracts are enforceable in China, it is important that they adhere to these three fundamental rules: Jurisdiction: Always specify a court within China for resolving legal disputes. Governing Law: Ensure that Chinese laws govern the contract. Language: Use Mandarin Chinese as the official language
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
Just got off the phone with a client who asked me to provide it with a “term sheet template” for buying product from a Vietnamese manufacturer. We generally advise our clients reach agreement on “key terms” before we start drafting their Manufacturing Contract. It is not productive for us to start drafting a manufacturing contract
A technology company contacted one of our China lawyers months after having started selling its software into China. This company came to us seeking help in deciding whether to continue selling its software from the United States or to form a China WFOE and start selling through that entity. The first thing we told this
We have written a number of times about the need to register intellectual property in China with the appropriate authorities. And we usually put particular emphasis on registering trademarks in China, because doing so is an easy, obvious, and relatively economical first step in IP protection. But for those selling or manufacturing products in China,
My friend Kent Kedl co-wrote an article for the Moscow Times today, entitled, Why Russia Is Just as Good as China, claiming businesses should be just as interested in Russia as they are in China and that corruption in Russia is no better or worse than corruption in China: For some reason, investors find Russian corruption
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.
