Since the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, China has released and updated countless national and local employment laws to deal with rapidly changing circumstances. In the United States and the EU, best practices usually dictate that you update your company’s employee handbook at least once a year and even more often if there have been
Many Chinese factories are hurting right now. Badly. This should come as no surprise. First they went through months of closures due to the coronavirus, and just when they opened they faced massively reduced demand. Chinese factories are closing left and right and many of those that are open are facing reduced demand and falling
Last week, Fred Rocafort (one of our international trade lawyers), Dan Pak (a VP of Procurement at a large East Coast hospital chain) and I put on a 90+ minute webinar on navigating PPE purchases from China. Based on the feedback we have received and the fact that a number of webinar companies have asked
Though many of our clients that manufacture in China are leaving China because of the costs, the difficulties and the tariffs, many of our clients that sell their goods and services into China are looking to move into China or grow their operations there. No matter what is going on in or regarding China, China
Way back in the pre-coronavirus days — October 30-2019 — in Do Not Let Force Majeure be a Major Force In Your China Contract, we did a post warning of force majeure provisions in contracts with Chinese companies. That post began with the following warning/joke; Pull out and look at your contract with your Chinese
The issue of forced labor in China has been in the news recently. In part, this is due to the connection between this issue and the larger human rights crisis in Xinjiang. However, forced labor is hardly a problem confined to Xinjiang, as a recent scandal involving British supermarket chain Tesco shows. Last month, Tesco
Foreign companies doing business in China fairly often ask our China employment lawyers whether they can legally hire someone who has passed the legal retirement age. The short answer is that doing so is legal, but somewhat complicated. Consider this hypothetical. Employer employs Employee (male) for several years. Employee turns 60, the statutory retirement age,
If you have employees in China, you must have a written employment contract with each and every one of your employees. Employing anyone (Chinese citizen or expat) in China without a current, enforceable, China-centric employment contract puts you at massive risk for financial penalties and worse. Late last month, China’s Ministry of Human Resources and
We Americans do not like foreign governments or their agents meddling in our domestic affairs, whether it is China, Russia, Iran, Syria, or some less reprehensible regime. We do not even like friendly foreign governments meddling in our affairs. I am not talking about traditional CIA/007 spies or agents who operate in the shadows, mainly
Since October 6, 2018, one of our recurring themes has been that China has become far more difficult for foreign companies. It is what we have been calling the New Normal. This New Normal extends to all foreign companies that do business in or with China, but it has hit U.S. and Canadian companies particularly
