Employers should be very careful using WeChat to manage their employment affairs. Consider this hypothetical. Employer amends its Rules and Regulations to require its employees forward or repurpose all Employer WeChat articles as the employee’s own “moments” on the employee’s personal WeChat account. The new Rules and Regulations also discipline employees who fail to meet the required minimum amount of  WeChat “forwards.” Employee several times fails to abide by this new rule and Employer terminates…

With Phase One of the US-China Trade deal requiring China to purchase large quantities of goods and services from the United States, it makes sense to write how to ensure payment when selling to China. When our China lawyers represent a client that will be providing products or services to a company in China, we usually start by asking about payment terms. If the Chinese company will be paying our client the full amount upfront,…

On January 15, 2020, the Coalition of American Vertical Engine Producers (Petitioner), consisting of Kohler Co. and Briggs & Stratton Corp., filed antidumping (AD) and countervailing duty (CVD) petitions against Vertical Shaft Engines between 225 – 999 cc from China.  These engines are typically used for riding lawn mowers and other non-hand held outdoor power equipment. This filing against Chinese vertical engine producers is yet another in a long line of anti-dumping/countervailing duty cases brought…

A few days ago, in China Manufacturing: “Elvis Has Left the Building”, we mentioned a South China Morning Post article suggesting the manufacturing exodus from China will not abate, regardless of any patches trade negotiators manage to place on the overall, strained U.S.-China relationship. That article included some sobering stats on the giant sucking sound we have heard coming from China the last couple years: Compared with June 2018, the month before the trade…

We Americans do not like foreign governments meddling in our domestic affairs, but our laws permit some activities if they are disclosed. This is the second of three posts regarding non-governmental (not to be confused with “NGO”) economic and political agents who operate and exert influence on U.S. soil on behalf of foreign governments and quasi-governmental groups. (You can find the first post here.) Often lawyers, lobbyists, and consultants are the types of individuals…

The United States and China are scheduled to have a grand signing ceremony on January 15 for the “Phase One” deal that is supposed to solve the U.S.-China trade war.  Though more than 200 guests have been invited to attend the ceremony, no one knows exactly what they will be signing because the text of the “Phase One” deal has not yet been released. Fox Business news reported that a U.S. trade source said the…

Just got back from teaching an International Law course at Indiana University’s Maurer School of Law in Bloomington, IN. I team taught this course with an experienced and excellent law professor, Professor Hannah Buxbaum. Professor Buxbaum is a powerhouse and I ended up learning a ton from both her and the students in the class. Teaching this class also forced me to re-examine many international law basics. We used the brand new edition of Transnational …