China’s recently stepped up efforts to root out unregistered foreign businesses in China has caused a rash of China consultants to retain the China lawyers at my law firm. From our work in forming China WFOEs (wholly foreign owned entities) for these consultants, we have discovered that many China consultants are falling dangerously short in
China Contract Formalities Contracts with Chinese companies often generate a unique set of legal and procedural intricacies. China’s legal landscape differs significantly from that of American, European, or Australian jurisdictions, primarily due to its distinct regulatory frameworks and business culture. These differences require a China-centric approach to both the drafting of China contracts and to
Under China’s employment laws, terminating a China employee who has completed his or her probation period is virtually never easy. Termination usually requires good cause and a severance payment. Most importantly a China employer must be able to show that any unilateral termination was based on statutory grounds. In this post, I lay out some basic
Most of our clients know little about China employment law, but most know well that China has high expectations on how China employers must treat pregnant and nursing employees. Our clients know this because they all seem to know of a foreign company that had to pay a lot of money for not knowing this.
China has liberalized its minimum capital requirements for WFOEa and the amounts required have been reduced in many Chinese cities. But even if the Chinese government is going to let you get away with very little registered capital, you may want to pay more. You should think about the registered capital you should be paying
In China, employment offer letters (录用通知书) are written documents employers give to employees stating the employer’s intent to enter into a labor relationship with the employee. These offfer letters typically propose the employee’s work title, work location, wages, and the term of the employment arrangement. Despite the relatively common use of employment offer letters in
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
There are three rules for making contracts enforceable in China: Make the jurisdiction a China court. Make the governing law Chinese law. Make the governing language Chinese. Foreign companies routinely insist on contract provisions that effectively render their contracts unenforceable in China. By their own efforts, they make their contracts worthless, much to the amusement
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
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
