China Law Blog

Many years ago, my old law firm brought in a "legal marketing expert" to lead a marketing seminar for the firm. I do not remember a single thing from that session beyond that the export forced each of us to describe our practice as though we had just been asked to do so by someone who had just gotten into the elevator with us heading up to the whatever floor.

Last week I met with a long-time (very no nonsense) client regarding an ongoing matter. As we were wrapping up the meeting so he could catch his ferry, he told mentioned his company was looking to start production in China and he wanted me to tell him what his company needed to do from a legal perspective to protect itself in China. He wanted the soup to nuts version and I had five minutes max. This is my ferry speech:

Obey the law. You will hear of those who are violating this or that law and getting away with it, but that just means they have been lucky so far.

Intellectual Property. IP is where your company's value lies and you must protect it. Trademarks are very valuable in China and cost very little to register. But, if you don't register your trademark, someone else surely will and you will lose it. First to register gets it, so register right away. Don't wait. Copyrights and patents, we will discuss next time. Non- competes, non-disclosures (NDA), and trade secret agreements work there and we will definitely need to talk about your need for those.

Contracts. You need good contracts. They need to be specific and usually they should be in Chinese. Choice of jurisdiction for disputes is critical and is the most common error I see. We will talk more about this later.

Due Diligence. I should have mentioned this first because it is probably most important. With whom you do business is key. If you team up with a crook, we lawyers cannot help you much, if at all. We have companies with whom we work that can help you investigate your Chinese partners.

Done.

Oh, and I assume he made his ferry.