Dan Harris, Author at Harris Bricken

Dan Harris

Four Common China Law Mistakes To Avoid

This post highlights four common and somewhat egregious mistakes my law firm’s China lawyers often see lawyers make when representing their clients in doing business with or in China, along with a very brief analysis of what causes each sort of mistake. 1. Not Realizing that China’s Bureaucracy Puts Form Over Substance Many years ago, a U.S.

China Contract Translations: What Were You Thinking?

The other day I was explaining to a client how important it is to have a trusted lawyer translate any Chinese-English contract and to emphasize that, I told him the following about a United States company that had fallen way down on its contract translation, to its extreme detriment: United States company contracted with a

China Manufacturing Agreements: Why Ours Are In Chinese, Flat Out

Had a nice conversation with a potential client last week. Company has a great new product it wants made in China. Like many companies starting out in China, this one is in the process of shopping for its China lawyers and my firm was one of four suggested to it by its regular corporate counsel.

International Law Realities: The 90-10 Rule.

A few weeks ago, a client asked our law firm to handle a relatively routine domestic matter for them. We told them we do not handle such matters and we gave them a short list of excellent attorneys that do. The client expressed surprise at our unwillingness to take on their matter and remarked on

China Trademarks and China Distribution contracts

How To Stop Your Chinese Distributor From Stealing Your Trademark

As often as we write about the need to register your trademarks in China, we have never written about how common it is for your China distributor to take your trademark and how easy it is to prevent that. I thought of this after receiving yet another phone call where this had happened. The “this”

Arbitration In Your International Contracts: Adult Supervision Required.

With sushi restaurants, it’s the yellowfin. With new houses, it’s the windows. With international contracts, it’s the dispute resolution provision. The “it” I am talking about is the one easiest, fastest, most accurate, way to judge whether something is good or not. And the way I judge international contracts is by heading straight to its

“Going Local” to Preserve Your China Sales

Our clients in many industries that sell their products and/or services to Chinese state-owned (SOEs) and city owned companies are reporting increasing roadblocks to their sales. They are telling us that the Chinese government is increasingly favoring Chinese domestic companies over them, based on “orders” they are getting from on high. The Chinese government has

International Manufacturing Contracts: Know These Nine Things

Our international manufacturing lawyers get a steady stream of emails from (mostly American/European/Australasian) companies wanting to sue their overseas manufacturers. Depending on the country, we typically respond by asking the potential client whether it has a written OEM Agreement with their manufacturer, whether that agreement is in the language of the country in which the

US-China Relations and Business Impacts: Ambassador Huntsman and Matthew Pottinger

Photo by Steve Griffin of the Deseret News Last Wednesday, Harris Bricken sponsored a Zoom conversation about U.S.-China relations featuring former Utah Governor and U.S. Ambassador Jon M. Huntsman Jr. and Matthew Pottinger, distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution and former deputy national security adviser. The conversation was moderated by Miles Hansen, president and

China NNN Agreements: The Initial Questions We Ask

If it seems we have been writing often about China NNN Agreements, you would be right. We are doing so because we have had a troubling increase in companies coming to us after having lost their IP to their Chinese counter-party (usually their Chinese manufacturer) because the NNN Agreements they used were worthless or even