I spoke last week (for ten minutes) in Atlanta at NACA’s First Annual US-China Business Conference. I posted that speech (the written version of it, anyway) in a post entitled China Legal Issues For Business. The Ten Minute Version. In going through and deleting old emails today, I came across my first, very different version of the speech. Initially, rather than deal with an overall general approach to dealing with Chinese legal issues, my plan was to speak really fast and highlight specific legal issues relating to foreign business in China. Here is the outline I was going to use for that sort of speech, before I concluded it would be too legalistic, boring and scatter-shot:
1. Company Formation
- Is it legal?
- Spend AFTER Chinese government knows you are forming.
2. Contracts
- Who’s your counterparty?
- Spend a little, save a lot. Be diligent with your Due Diligence.
- Arbitration is the only solution, except when it’s not.
- How to get your Christmas lights before Christmas.
- Contract language/Arbitration language
3. Intellectual Property
- Register early and often, except patents
- NDAs are not DOA
- It’s more than just legal.
4. Joint Ventures
- Why, why, why? The Peoria test.
- Control is always critical, yet nearly always illusory.
5. Labor Law
- How does lifetime tenure for everyone sound?
- How does overtime for nearly everyone sound?
- Written contracts for everyone.
- Employer manual for everyone, to include FCPA and trade secret language
6. Choosing Your China Lawyer
- English and Guanxi are overrated.
- Lawyer ethics and confidentiality. Be careful.
7. The law is everything and nothing
- Ex post facto. Sure, why not?
- Obsolescence at warp speed.
- You are not Chinese and you never will be.
- Assume law in China is nothing like the U.S/Assume it is similar.
Think I’ll use this the next time someone wants me to speak for thirty minutes….
