China Laws as Written Versus China Laws in Real Life
Chinese laws as written do not equal Chinese law in real life. Sorry.
China LOI and MOU: Don’t Let Them Happen to You
At least once a month, an American or sometimes a British company will come to one of our China attorneys after having spent considerable time negotiating a complex transaction with a Chinese company. They then show us a Letter of Intent (LOI) or a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that sets out in great detail the
China Service of Process Under the Hague Convention
1. Service of Process Companies and Domestic Litigators Should NOT Apply Many years ago, I read an excellent blog post over at the Letters Blogatory blog, Service of Process and the Unauthorized Practice of Law, on how service of process companies frequently mess up to the detriment of their clients. This post also asks whether
Why Suing Chinese Companies in the U.S. is Often a Waste of Time
Just about every month, one of our international dispute resolution lawyers will get a call from a lawyer or company from somewhere in the United States, calling and expecting us to be interested in the great case they are offering us. Lately, we have been getting a bunch of these calls from companies that received
China Vacation Pay: How not to get Sued
Foreign company employers in China constantly get sued over employee vacation days. The very short version of the general rule regarding vacation days in China is that any employee who works continuously for a year is legally entitled to annual paid leave (a/k/a paid vacation days). This is not news to China-based foreign employers as
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
How to Write a Self-Enforcing Contract That Works
In part one of this series on self-enforcing contracts, Self-Enforcing Contracts: A Good Tool for Tough Markets, I wrote about how self-enforcing contracts can be so valuable when contracting with a company in a country with a less developed legal system. In this post, I will discuss how self-enforcing contracts work and the key provisions
Self-Enforcing Contracts: A Good Tool for Tough Markets
1. Draft Your Contract for the Applicable Country In How Not to be in China, we wrote about how companies are seeking to diversify their supply chains by moving some or all of their production to other countries. When entering into contracts in these new countries, the first question to ask is whether the new
Owed a LITTLE Money by Your Chinese Manufacturer? Good Luck with That
For at least a decade, our law firm has probably never gone a week without getting an email from a company that has paid anywhere between $500 and $50,000 for product from a Chinese manufacturer and received either nothing in return or product that clearly is not up to snuff. These days, we are getting
China Employee Terminations when Economic Circumstances Change
Terminating a China-based employee usually requires good cause. A serious breach of employer rules and regulations can be a basis for an employer’s unilateral termination of an employee, but China employers have other options as well. A China-based employer may terminate an employment contract if the economic circumstances which formed the basis for the parties signing the