Thanks,

David

One thing to remember is that a badly drafted contract can be worse than no contract at all. If for example, you have both sides sign a contract in which it's stated that all trademark disputes would be settled in California courts under California law, you are much, much worse off than if you had signed no contract at all. Without a contract, you can bring suit in a Chinese court and get an order stopping the bad behavior. If you sign this contract, you won't be able to get a Chinese court to hear the case, and even if you can get a California court to do so, you'll likely end up with a worthless judgment.

Why thank you. Let's make a law on that.

Dan

We had one arbitration before the BAC but it settled so quickly we never got a feel for it. I have heard that it is making real efforts to move things along faster than CEITAC and to be more accommodating to foreigners, but I don't know if it is succeeding in that or not. I will post this question over at the China Law Blog Linkedin Group and see what sort of responses come back.

You are absolutely right about how no contract at all is usually better than a really bad one and you have highlighted my pet peeve of bad contract provisions: providing for exclusive jurisdiction in the hometown American court. I would guess that about 25% of all international contracts do this. I just got a call yesterday from an American lawyer acting as though I would be all existed to take on enforcing their "huge" judgment against a big Chinese company. I could hear the air escape from his lungs when I told him that we had no interest whatsoever in taking on the case, no matter what contingency fee percentage he would be offering.

I always try to imagine the next phone call where the lawyer calls the client and says, "you know that US case I told you to bring after telling you to put Chicago as our exclusive jurisdiction, well it turns out that the $50,000 you spent to get the judgment in Chicago....." I think I said this previously, but I used to feel bad for these people, but now that I am older and more cynical, I cannot help but see a bit of poetic justice in it.