One of our oldest and most cherished traditions is to write about China scams at the end of every year. We do this because history shows this is the biggest month for them. It would seem that the scammers increase their activities at the end of the year, hoping to be less noticed/less examined due to the usual end of the season rush.  I was reminded of this tradition after reading my emails this morning…

In marked contrast to the overall tone of hostility coming out of official Washington and beyond, there is a belief within some circles that things are on the up and up in China when it comes to intellectual property rights (IPR) protection. Xi Jinping has been named as one of the year’s “50 most influential people in IP” by Managing IP, a well-regarded IP industry publication, and Foreign Policy recently declared that China’s IPR…

The US-China Trade War is and will be the new normal. Relations between the EU and China are soomewhat better, but those are quickly getting worse as well. If you are doing business in China or with China you should at least once every day look in a mirror and say this: Relations between China and the West are not getting any better and they will only get worse. I say this not to make…

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 Social Security issued a few (Chinese-language) employment and dispatch sample forms for reference for both employers and employees, emphasizing again…

No sooner than President Trump signed the Hong Kong human rights and democracy act into law, China announced retaliatory measures, banning U.S. warships from Hong Kong and restricting the work of American NGOs. These responses were narrowly tailored—perhaps in part because China is wary of rocking the boat too much, in a way that could lead to additional economic pain, at a time when it’s feeling the economic strain of tariffs and other…

Had lunch yesterday with two long-time friends, both international lawyers who have spent many years living and working in China. During a discussion about an international real estate matter on which one of the lawyers was working, someone asked if we remembered back when foreigners were able to freely buy real estate in China. We all said yes, and then we ended up talking about how when the laws on that changed, so many people tried…

This is Part Four of our new series laying out the issues companies typically face and the steps our China company lawyers typically go through when forming a China Joint Venture. In Part One, we talked about how despite the increasing difficulties with doing business in China (or perhaps because of those difficulties), our China corporate lawyers are seeing an increase in foreign companies looking to do joint ventures in China. We then discussed…