China contract jurisdiction

Choosing the Jurisdiction for Your China Contract Disputes

I love when blog posts come pre-written. In cleaning out old emails today I found one from one of my law firm’s international dispute resolution lawyers to a Canadian client’s in-house lawyer who had proposed writing a contract that would give the client the choice of suing its Chinese counter-party in either Canada or China.

China employee termination

China Employee Terminations in These Tough Times

Even in the best of times, employee terminations in China are fraught with risk. A mishandled China employee termination (or even just the discussions surrounding the termination) can quickly cause problems. China's declining economy has weakened its job market and made both employees and the government more likely to fight back against any little termination mistake.

Sinosure is broken

Sinosure and Deliberately Bringing China Down, Factory by Factory

About six months ago, in Deliberately Bringing China Down, Factory by Factory, I wrote about a couple of Americans who were buying product on credit from Chinese factories, with no intention of ever making the required second payment: The “this” to which I am referring is an underground (I say underground because I have never

Stop sign no deal

Why China Deals Do NOT Get Done

We have put the kibosh on many China-related deals, and that is what this post is about, especially in this environment with financially distressed companies popping up all around thanks to the trade war and Covid. For ease of explanation and to camouflage the identities of those involved, I have amalgamated a bunch of them into one. This scenario is incredibly typical, including the retirement of the owner precipitating the need for the deal.

China company chop/seal

The Chinese Company Chop Goes Digital

A China company chop is an official seal or stamp that legally binds the company to what it has agreed to in the document on which its company chop has been stamped. Under Chinese law, a company chop is strong legal evidence of the agreement of the company whose chop is on the document. The company chop (a.k.a company seal or company stamp) essentially replaces a signature on contracts and other important documents. The company chop binds the entire company, usually no matter who (if anyone) actually puts their signature on the document.