Not surprisingly, our China lawyers are seeing a massive increase in foreign companies seeking to reduce or eliminate their China ties. Many are seeking to terminate their relationship with their Chinese suppliers and move production elsewhere (so far, it’s been mostly to Vietnam, Taiwan, Poland, Thailand, Mexico, Brazil, India and Malaysia). The other day I
If I were to list the ten biggest/most common mistakes my law firm’s China lawyers see, not forming a China subsidiary when necessary and forming a China subsidiary when not unnecessary would both be on that list. We write constantly about the risks of doing business in China without a subisidiary. See Doing Business in
With the recent onslaught of tariffs, our international manufacturing lawyers are increasingly drafting manufacturing contracts for Asian countries beyond China. In the last few weeks alone, we’ve drafted manufacturing contracts for Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Taiwan, and India. We also have seen a noticeable uptick in our Mexico contracts as well. One of the issues our
I do mean to sound alarmist here. Almost since this blog’s inception, we have written about how if you are doing business in China you need a Chinese legal entity, be it a Wholly Foreign Owned Entity (WFOE), a Joint Venture (JV) or a Representative Office (RO). And pretty much each time, our writings on
Everything China comes in waves and China trademark “theft” is no different. When we first started this blog back in 2006, we would get a call just about every week from someone wanting to sue a Chinese company blocking the company’s product from leaving China. We hated those calls because most of the time our
China manufacturing contracts are very different from Western manufacturing contracts, for reasons which stem from differences in laws or differences in economics. This means our China manufacturing lawyers often must explain why they are doing something in China manufacturing so different from the way the client “always does it” in the West. One of the
Like so many other U.S. industries, the U.S. vaping industry is now in the crosshairs of a 25% tariff on products imported from China. The first two waves of proposed tariffs against China covered about $50 billion worth of Chinese products, but did not include vaping products. After China retaliated and proposed its own equivalent
Currently, the number one film in China is the smash hit Hello Mr. Billionaire (US$306M and counting). It’s a comedy about a hapless soccer player who stands to inherit 30 billion RMB, but only if he can spend 1 billion RMB in a month (albeit with a number of complicated conditions, like no gambling, donating
Chinese companies (especially SOEs) increasingly require their contracts with foreign companies provide for disputes to be resolved by arbitration in China. Our China lawyers are seeing mostly CIETAC and BAC arbitration clauses. Many of our American and European clients are uncomfortable with arbitrating against a Chinese company in China as they are convinced they cannot “get a fair
A lawyer friend of mine emailed me a link the other day that had been sent to him by one of his clients. The link was to an article written nearly two years ago, China Supplier Vetting, Part 1: Background Checks, and he wanted my opinion on it. I responded by telling my friend that
