Our China law practice is the fastest growing part of our firm. Our China practice is designed to be different from the standard model for assisting U.S. clients in dealing with China. It is different in the lawyers handling our clients' Chinese legal matters (both Chinese corporate law and Chinese litigation matters), different in the nature of our clients who do business in China, different in the legal connections we have in China, and, most importantly, different in the way we conduct our Chinese legal work. Harris & Moure also operates China Law Blog as a source of China legal and business information for our clients and others interested in China. By having attorneys both in China and the United States who handle China law work, we are able to achieve near 24 hour coverage and provide easy communication to our clients in the United States, Europe and Asia.

Experienced China Lawyers. Fluent in Chinese Language and Culture.

Our attorneys have been involved in Chinese legal work since long before China business became the hot topic. We have been working in China since the opening to the West in the late 1970's. We have been doing legal work and legal education in China since 1984.

Steve Dickinson, who heads our China Law practice, began his studies of Chinese language and culture in 1975. He is fluent in both spoken and written Chinese. He has worked extensively in China both on legal matters and on legal education. During the mid 90's he was the director of the University of Washington Law School's program for training Chinese legal professionals. As an Associate Professor of Law, he also taught an innovative program on cross border contract negotiation and did extensive research in the practical application of intellectual property law in China. On the Chinese side, Steve was the first attorney invited to teach in China by an independent Chinese Bar Association and he continues to lecture frequently in China regarding international law issues. Steve has also acted as a guest lecturer (in Chinese) for the intellectual property law program at the Beijing University School of Law and international contract law in Italy for the International Development Law Organization.  Steve works out of Qingdao and Shanghai, China. 

Ben Dietz began his Chinese language and culture studies in 1980 and has been involved with China and Tawian ever since.  Ben spent two years working with a Taiwanese law firm and he is fluent in both spoken and written Chinese. Ben's practice focuses mostly on advising Chinese companies doing business in the U.S. and on advising American and European companies on the legal aspects of doing business in Taiwan and in China.  Ben works out of Seattle.

Dan Harris has been handling international law matters in Asia for more than 15 years and he is there constantly.  He loves to tell of the time the Westin Chosun Hotel in Seoul photographed him and gave him gifts because it was his 100th stay there and of how that was so many stays ago he can hardly remember.  Dan's Korea stays invariably are on his way to or/and from his many China trips.  Dan speaks and writes extensively on the legal aspects of doing business in China. 

Leading national and international media, including, The Wall Street Journal, The International Herald Tribune, Forbes, Business Week, Investor's Business Daily, The New York Times, The National Law Journal, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, China Economic Review, China International Business Magazine, The Christian Science Monitor, National Public Radio (NPR), and CCTV (China Central Television), have all come to us because of our China law expertise and LexisNexis chose us to head up its China law site. 

Our Clients are also Different

The focus of our Chinese law practice, like the focus of our business as a whole, is on the small and medium sized company and on the large company needing specialized international law assistance. Though hardly anything in a Chinese legal matter could ever be said to be typical, the nature of our Chinese transactional and litigation work usually has some common threads. The corporate side of our China work usually involves our assisting American or European companies in establishing Chinese manufacturing operations and protecting their intellectual property and brand name rights. The litigation side of our China work usually involves our assisting American and European companies in pursuing claims against Chinese, Taiwanese, and Hong Kong companies who have violated intellectual property rights, have failed to pay on a contract, or who have manufactured defective goods. Many of our Chinese law clients are do not have their own in house legal counsel and their regular outside law firm is unfamiliar with Chinese legal issues.  We frequently work with other law firms on matters requiring China legal knowledge. Sometimes this involves our helping another firm's client figure out the legal requirements for doing business in China and other times it will involve our being "the China lawyers" on a domestic or international litigation matter. 

Cost Effectiveness is Key

Harris & Moure handles its China law matters very differently than the typical large law firm with a China law practice and by doing so, we reduce the expense and the procedural confusion and delay. We have long established relationships with top Chinese law firms in Shanghai, Beijing, Qingdao, Shenzhen, Dalian, and various other cities throughout mainland China. We work directly with these firms in the Chinese language to ensure communication is effective, costs are contained, and best rates are obtained. Using this approach, we have proven wrong the usual impression that collecting on a debt or pursuing a breach of contract claim in China is "twice as difficult and twice as expensive" as doing so domestically. We routinely handle our Chinese litigation cases for roughly what they would cost domestically.

One of the other things that sets us apart is our willingness to bill the bulk of our China matters on a flat fee basis.  Our clients frequently tell us how much they appreciate our willingness to quote our fees upfront and to stick by those quotes.  We have done OEM agreements, employment contracts, employer manuals, trademark filings, non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), company formations, and various other China law matters for a flat fee.  

Trademarks in China — Absolutely Essential

You have worked too hard building up your name to lose it in China. There are actually a number of people in China who make a living by usurping foreign trademarks and then selling a license to that trademark to the original license holder. Once one comes to grip with the fact that China, like most of the rest of the world is a "first to file" country, one can understand how easy this usurpation is, and also, how easy it is to prevent it. The fact that you are manufacturing your product in China just for export does not in any way minimize the need for you to protect your trademark. Once someone secures registration of "your" trademark in China, they have the power to stop your goods at the border and to prevent them from leaving China.

The key to protecting a trademark in China is actually very simple: register it in China.

China's trademark requirements are actually quite similar to those in most other countries. The trademark must not conflict with an existing Chinese trademark and it must be distinctive. China allows for registration of all marks for goods, services, collective marks and certification marks. A Chinese trademark gives foreign companies a surprising amount of protection in China. If a foreign company learns someone is infringing on its trademark in China, it has a number of actions available to it. For additional information regarding Chinese trademark law, please click here for an article we wrote on this, entitled, Chinese Trademark Registration - An Essential Primer.

The Practical Solution is Always our Goal.

Our goal in negotiating business deals in China is to achieve our client's goal effectively and at the lowest reasonable cost. We rigorously avoid legal provisions that work under U.S. law but that will fail under Chinese law or business practices. The practical solution is always our goal. Our legal partners in China have been working on foreign related business for over twenty years. On almost all issues arising in China we can develop effective solutions that meet our client's needs in a way that actually works under China's legal system. We will never propose an elegant legal solution with no practical application under Chinese law. Probably our most valuable asset is that we have been negotiating deals and drafting contracts in China for over 25 years and we have been involved with the outsourcing and OEM manufacturing business in China from its infancy.

Chinese Contracts: OEM and Outsourcing Agreements

Our Chinese law firm connections distinguish how we handle our Chinese contract and corporate law matters. Though we have substantial expertise in Chinese law, and though we make sure to keep at least one of our lawyers in China at all times, we recognize that Chinese law changes daily and so we nearly always partner with a Chinese law firm to make sure every Chinese contract and every Chinese transaction on which we work fully complies with constantly changing Chinese law. By Chinese law, we mean more than just the law that can be found in the Chinese law books; we mean the Chinese law that is enforced every day by the Chinese courts and regulatory agencies.  For more on China outsourcing, check out Outsourcing in China: Five Basics for Reducing Risk.

Chinese Employment Contracts and Employer Manuals

Beginning in January, 2008, China tightened up its labor laws, particularly as applied to foreign companies in China.  Companies without written contracts with their China employees and an employee manual run the very real risk of getting sued and found liable for double and more in back wages.  The way to avoid these China labor law problems is relatively simple and relatively inexpensive: make sure all of your China employees have written employment contracts, preferably in Chinese.  We have substantial experience writing Chinese language and China law compliant employment contracts and employee manuals for foreign companies with employees in China, usually on a flat fee basis. 

Chinese Language Ability is Crucial Because the Chinese Contract Controls

Our lawyers' ability to work directly in the Chinese language is a huge asset.  It allows us to conduct all negotiations directly in Chinese without need for constant translation and retranslation, which both increases the cost and the chance for miscommunications. We can ensure that your final contract is properly stated in Chinese and this is critical. There are many traps for the unwary in China and one of the most common is the dual language contract. A foreign company contracts with a Chinese company with contracts drafted in English and in Chinese. The foreign company takes heart in the fact that both contracts call for the English language contract to apply should there be any conflicts between the two. The foreign company has been fooled. Chinese law dictates that in these situations the only enforceable contract is the one in Chinese and, frequently, when the foreign company goes to enforce the Chinese language contract, it learns it is different from the English language version in many respects. The foreign company now finds itself unable to enforce the contract it thought it had. We have seen example after example of these problems and we are aware of only one sure fire solution: retaining your own lawyer who is completely fluent in both English and Mandarin Chinese.  

A contract that provides for litigation in the United States or your home country in Europe is rarely a solution. For the vast majority of contracts, in the event of a breach, litigation must take place in China for practical and legal reasons. Companies frequently ask us to pursue collection actions in the United States against Chinese companies that have consented to United States jurisdiction. The problem is that even if judgment in the United States is easy to obtain, that judgment has little to no value in terms of actually lcollecting anything from the Chinese company. For that, you still need to go to China and sue on your contract there and for that you still need to be certain your contract conforms to Chinese law and is fully enforceable in China. Chinese law actually does provide powerful contractual remedies to deal with most potential business disputes. However, if your contract does not take advantage of these provisions, those remedies will not be available to you.

Representation on the Ground in China

We realize that one of the reasons our clients hire us is because they are aware of our reputation in international law and the high standards of our work. They also know that we are much better able to understand Western businesses and their goals than a Chinese law firm and so we always stay close to every matter we take on. One of the distinctive ways we do this is by permanently stationing one of our attorneys, Steve Dickinson, in China. We do this because it allows us to (1) maintain our close relationships with Chinese counsel; (2) keep closely abreast of the business and legal situation in China; and (3) most importantly, better serve our clients. Our presence in China is of particular benefit for assisting our clients with negotiations in China and in traversing the strategic terrain of a difficult dispute.

China Company Formation -- WFOE, Rep Office, Joint Venture

We have extensive experience forming companies in China. Steve Dickinson of our office is considered one of the foremost Chinese corporate lawyers in the world and the leading international corporate law treatise, International Corporate Procedures (Mathew Bender/Jordan's), chose Steve to write the Chinese corporate law chapter.  Steve has recently been in demand as a lecturer in China on China's new company law, which just went into effect on January 1, 2006. Chinese lawyers have even asked for Steve's assistance on these new laws because they are more like those in the United States than they are like China's previous version of its company laws. Steve's combination of Western corporate legal training and knowledge of Chinese and China's corporate law history ideally suits him to interpret these new laws.  Steve has also been in big demand as a speaker on how to avoid problems when entering into joint ventures, a topic on which he has lectured many times for JP Morgan Chase, including at their highly exclusive 2008 China Conference in Beijing.  Steve also wrote an article on this for AmCham's China Brief magazine, entitled, "Avoiding Mistakes in China Joint Ventures" and Dan Harris wrote an article on the same topic for the Wall Street Journal, entitled, "Joint Venture Jeopardy."  Our firm is nearly always working on a joint venture deal somewhere. 

China's revised company laws further liberalize foreign investment in China and create even greater opportunities for foreign companies to register directly in China.

Registering a company in China is very different from registering a company in the United States or Europe. Registering a company in China requires much more than filling out a few forms and paying a small fee. It requires the company seeking to go into China to explain to the Chinese government exactly what its plans will be in China and to secure all or nearly all necessary approvals. In the United States and in Europe, registering a company is usually just a first step to securing the licenses, permits, identification numbers and approvals to do business. That is not the case in China. In China, those licenses, permits, identification numbers and approvals must be secured before registration can occur. So though it is complicated and time consuming to register a business in China, once registered, the newly formed company is fully ready to conduct business.

Chinese Litigation/China Arbitration

Many U.S. firms find litigation in China to be expensive and cumbersome. There are two reasons for this. First, since litigation must be conducted in China through a Chinese attorney, they must usually work through a U.S. attorney who is not directly connected to the case. Second, since the litigation must be conducted in the Chinese language, they are usually working through layers of translation back and forth from Chinese to English and back again.  Because we have lawyers already in China fluent in Chinese and because we already have established long term relationships with top Chinese law firms and Chinese lawyers, we are able to commence litigation in China quickly and at a relatively low cost.  We have successfully overseen a number of Chinese litigation matters in China, ranging from securing payment refunds for bad product to pursuing breach of contract and fraud claims.  

We also have substantial experience with arbitration in China, including CEITAC arbitration.  If your contract calls for CEITAC arbitration and does not provide for it to be in a language other than Chinese, you are facing arbitration in Chinese.  Contact us.  We can help. 

Chinese Criminal Law/Chinese Criminal Litigation

Though our focus is on business and though none of our lawyers purports to be "criminal lawyers" the reality is that the law is different in China and what may not be considered a crime in the West sometimes is in China.  Because of that, and due in large part to our Chinese language skills and close connections with Chinese lawyers throughout China, we have developed an expertise in assisting foreigners facing Chinese criminal prosecution.  On these cases, we bring in top-flight experienced Chinese criminal lawyers and we act as a liasion between the client and the Chinese lawyer, who usually does not speak any language other than Chinese.  Sometimes our role on these China criminal cases is confined to China; other times we aid in gathering evidence from outside China to help the foreign defendant in his or her China case. 

China Law Blog

We started the China Law Blog in 2006 and it has since gone on to become the undisputed leader among China law blogs.  In 2008, The ABA (American Bar Association) Journal chose it as one of the top 100 law blogs (blwags) and then we were elected by its readers as the best Black Letter Law Blog by its readers.  In the most recent vote on Chinalyst, China Law Blog was voted the Best China business/law blog.  China Law Blog has also drawn accolades from Business Week, Alltop and Blogged.  You can read more about our blog on Wikipedia.  We are proud that our blog has assumed such a prominent role in the discussion regarding China law and China business.