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“Our clients and industry sources are telling us there is to be a de facto ban on U.S. content in the theatrical and streaming sectors,” said Shanghai-based entertainment attorney Mathew Alderson, a partner at Harris Sliwoski, an international law firm whose China office has several U.S. clients. “As far as I’m aware, the policy has not been written down, and we don’t expect it to be. However, it is coming to the attention of the industry now.”
Even if an American brand does not plan to sell in China, the firm should still guard its trademark.
“We were contacted by four European companies that controlled, maybe, around 80 percent of a particular product market,” said lawyer Dan Harris, who advises companies that do business in China. The firms all produced in China but didn’t file for Chinese trademarks. One of their Chinese manufacturers went out and registered all four European brands.
“Once [the Chinese manufacturer] got their China trademark, they told these four companies: you cannot ship product from China anymore. It was a disaster for these four companies,” Harris said.
With the U.S.-China trade war raging — and outcomes for entertainment industries still opaque — Iger can be expected to keep his cards close until a resolution eventually arrives. “Disney has a good sense of the big picture and the small details when it comes to the China market,” says Adams Lee, an attorney specializing in trade law at Harris Bricken in Beijing. “They have probably already factored in a variety of scenarios depending on whether the U.S. and China trade war ends, escalates or maintains some variation of the current status quo.”
“The operation of a VOD service by Disney+, or any other foreign streamer, would require a major change to the negative list,” explains Mathew Alderson, a partner at Harris Bricken Attorneys & Consultants in Beijing. “In the alternative, an express exception would be required under some other law.”
The accord now being drawn up to resolve the trade fight between the world’s two largest economies promises better treatment of U.S. companies in China and more Chinese orders for U.S. crops and other products. But rattled businesses on both sides of the Pacific are skittish about rushing back in to revive the once-booming investment activity between the two countries. “There is no way any deal between China and the U.S. will cause everyone on both sides to say, ‘We were just kidding,’” said Dan Harris, managing partner at Harris Sliwoski, a law firm that specializes in investment with China. “The tariffs and the arrests and the threats and the heightened risk have impacted companies and that will not go away.”
Adams Lee, a Seattle-based international trade lawyer at law firm Harris Sliwoski, said Trump appeared to want to continue holding tariffs over China, given the “Tariff Man” title he has applied to himself.
“He wouldn’t necessarily have to escalate and increase the tariffs from 10 per cent to 25 per cent,” Lee said. “He could say China has done enough to continue talking and maintain the current status quo.
“Seems like more work needs to be done by Lighthizer and lower-level folks with technical knowledge to hammer out what specific actions China needs to do, or what the US finds lacking.”
