The first step for drafting an international product sales agreement is to deal with the basic sales terms. The terms for customization and cooperative design can come later.
I was interviewed last year by as part of an ongoing interview series on strategy and innovation. The below is that interview [it is no longer online anywhere else]. Dan Harris is the founder of Harris Sliwoski, an international law firm with offices in Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, Phoenix New York, Barcelona, Madrid and Beijing.
A China-centric written contract is an effective tool for doing business in or with China. A first step in creating this effective tool is to carefully follow the rules for execution. Chinese courts are bureaucratic and formalistic. Make use of that tendency so you can prevail. Don’t blunt the edge of your instrument with sloppy
Our China employment lawyers constantly hear misinformation about China employment contracts and double wage claims. In this post, I will try to set the record straight. China’s employment laws require full-time employees be employed pursuant to a written employment contract. But what happens with employees without a written employment contract? As with pretty much everything
Contracting in China: The Old and the New It used to be common for OEM manufacturing in China to be done on a purchase order basis, with no underlying contract. Much service work done by foreigners for Chinese clients was based on an exchange of emails. Today, however, to be able to bring a plausible
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 Arbitration Clauses Chinese companies frequently require contract disputes be resolved through arbitration, often designating CIETAC in China as the arbitral institution. Many foreign companies are apprehensive about the fairness of arbitration in China. However, it’s important to understand Chinese arbitrators weigh both legal correctness and ethical equities when making decisions. This post discusses why
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
VIE stands for variable interest entity and they are entities used to allow a company in China to technically be a Chinese domestic company, but be de facto controlled by a foreign-owned entity or entities. VIE structures are usually used to allow foreign companies to get involved in various sectors of China’s economy forbidden to
The Chinese Portion of Your Contract is What Matters One of the most common trix employed by Chinese companies against American and European companies is fooling the American/European company into believing that the English version of their contract actually matters. My law firm’s China lawyers often see this from companies that come to us for
