It is nearly always a good idea to have your Chinese counter-party “chop” or “seal” your China contracts with their official China company chop. There are many types of company chops. Which one should be used? How do you know if the company chop is real? What does a real China company chop look like?
Chinese companies tend to view litigation and arbitration differently from Western companies. Western companies generally view litigation as expensive, risky, time-consuming, and unpleasant and they strive to avoid it. Chinese companies tend to be reluctant to engage in good faith settlement negotiations for fear the opposing side will see that as conceding that their position
Hong Kong courts are world class and most companies would rather have their disputes against their Mainland China counter-parties resolved in Hong Kong instead of in Wuxi or Harbin. Hong Kong as jurisdiction of choice is alluring. But for all sorts of reasons, it’s a trap. Let me explain. In 2008, China and Hong Kong
China has adopted a plan to establish a cyberspace court in Hangzhou. The plan is for this court to accept filings electronically, try cases via livestream and hear only e-commerce and Internet related cases. Why Hangzhou? Under Chinese civil procedure law, lawsuits must be brought in the place of the defendant’s domicile. For companies, domicile
Pretty much every month, one of my law firm’s international lawyers gets an email or a phone call from someone (often a fellow lawyer) seeking assistance with making a China related document legal for some sort of use somewhere in the world. Maybe 40 percent of the time, the request relates to a need to
A German lawyer, representing a German company owed lots of money by a Chinese citizen, wrote me last week to discuss retaining my law firm to help the company collect on its debt by seizing U.S and Canada real property held by the Chinese citizen. This lawyer was coming to me because he had liked
The Wall Street Journal wrote how China is increasingly becoming the venue of choice for foreign company patent litigation. That's right. China.
Every employer in China should have its own set of Rules and Regulations because without one you will have an extremely tough time terminating a China employee. Many companies doing business in China have learned the hard way that terminating China employees is difficult. Recognizing this, many foreign employers in China now have a Rules
Every year U.S. producers file 10-15 petitions asking the U.S. government to investigate whether certain products imported into the US are sold at unfair prices (antidumping or AD) or are unfairly subsidized (countervailing duty or CVD). Odds are good that at least two new AD/CVD petitions will be filed by Halloween and as many as
With Amazon and Ebay having increased their efforts at bringing in Chinese sellers and with Chinese manufacturers branching out and making their own products, the number of companies contacting our international intellectual property lawyers about problems with counterfeit products and knockoffs has soared. If the problem involves infringing products being imported into the United States,
