International Distribution Agreements: Beware the Eager Distributor In one matter my law firm handled, a manufacturer of industrial coatings signed an exclusive Southeast Asia distribution agreement with a distributor that looked ideal. It had regional warehousing, relevant sales experience, and a management team that sounded sophisticated from the first call. Eighteen months later, the manufacturer
Foreign Contractors and Distributors: Frequently Asked Questions Yesterday’s post explained why the overseas sales shortcut so often backfires: a company calls someone a contractor, agent, or distributor, but the relationship underneath does not match the label. This FAQ builds on that post. It answers the questions we most often hear from companies selling abroad without
Foreign Contractors and Distributors: The International Sales Shortcut That Often Backfires Many companies want foreign sales without a foreign footprint: no subsidiary, no payroll, no local employees, no leased office, no permanent commitment. That can be a sensible way to test a market. But for many businesses, that first move into international sales is also
The Hong Kong Intermediary Trap: Do Not Contract with the Wrong China Company Foreign buyers like dealing with Hong Kong intermediaries. The emails are clear, the invoices look familiar, the bank account feels safer, and the person on the other end usually speaks better English than the factory contact. But in China manufacturing, invoices are
China Supply Chain Restructuring: Legal Traps in Moving, Selling, or Exiting China A U.S. manufacturer decides to move production from China to Mexico. The company’s technical team starts shipping over production files and the company opens early talks with a Chinese buyer for the plant. The move looks routine. Then the files raise an export-control
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
If your products are made in China and exported from there, your trademarks are already exposed. For many companies, the real risk is not selling in China. It is someone else registering the mark first and using that registration to disrupt manufacturing or exports.
Emerging Market Compliance Risks: When Local Workarounds Become Permanent Liabilities Companies entering emerging markets hear the same reassurance again and again: “This is how things are done here.” The advice comes in familiar forms. Use a connected intermediary to speed up a permit. Put shares in a nominee’s name to get around ownership limits. Ignore
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
China Manufacturing Contracts: Why U.S. Drafts Do Not Work Clients often send us a U.S. manufacturing agreement and ask whether it can save time or money on a China manufacturing contract. It cannot. Sometimes the ask is smaller: can we just spend a couple of hours reviewing it? We decline because we will not bill
