You recall the fun and games when the Chinese media went after Apple as part of the Consumer Day “celebrations,” right? CCTV led the charge, followed by various Op/Eds and in-depth reporting on the U.S. MNC’s product warranty policy. Whether Apple was in violation of the law or not, it certainly was slammed upside the [...]
No one is talking about murder yet, but it’s just a matter of time. The latest food quality scandal in China is humming along steadily at the moment, with accusations flying, arrests being made, and protestations being hastily issued by restauranteurs and others in the food biz. All this turmoil just because mutton was replaced [...]
As someone who has been writing legal newsletters (or similar) for about 15 years, I speak with authority on this subject. I’ve also helped to train a boatload of lawyers with respect to drafting a variety of documents, both formal and informal. The problem is that most lawyers are wholly unfamiliar with the concept of [...]
A while back, I wrote about the feud between the China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission (CIETAC) and, well, itself, specifically Beijing (aka headquarters) and its sub-commissions in Shanghai and Shenzhen. The latter two went rogue, with Beijing saying that the “CIETAC” moniker was no longer available to them and that anyone choosing to [...]
You might remember a strange little case that was filed back in 2011 by some Chinese dissidents in New York. Their weak ass sadly untested argument was that Baidu was censoring search results such that their anti-China content did not come up when folks did a search. The plaintiffs argued that this was a violation of [...]
Great post by Rachel at Tea Leaf Nation on whether China’s new leaders, some of which have law degrees, will be more likely to work on rule of law issues. My conclusion: maybe, but not because they have law degrees. Most of the post is devoted to netizen chatter on this issue, and I particularly enjoyed [...]
The decision by China’s government last week to abolish its railways ministry could have three possible consequences, which have raised concerns among the public after plans to scrap the debt-laden and scandal-ridden ministry were initially welcomed. (WantChinaTimes) The article from which I grabbed that quote is entitled “Public fear higher prices as China’s railways ministry [...]
OK, time to catch up with a few admin issues, not to mention the news. As I mentioned previously, I’ve been spending the past couple weeks in Pennsylvania at corporate HQ getting up to speed on the new professional gig (FYI: I finally updated my bio with details). I’ve been enjoying such learning opportunities as: [...]
I’m feeling like a big cliche at the moment, sitting here at a Starbucks in scenic Exton, Pennsylvania and trying to get a little blogging in between other commitments. Blogging at a Starbucks, surrounded by suburban Americans with their bizarre custom coffee orders — it’s like the first half hour of a Rom Com. Anyway, [...]
Okay, so I’ve done my part over the years making fun of anyone who thinks Internet/online game addiction is a real disease that deserves diagnostic criteria, special facilities, trained health care professionals, etc. Regardless, there is a constituency here in China who takes this very seriously, probably the same folks who think that if a [...]
You might not have caught the news from early in the week about a possible acquisition of a Chinese brewery by beer colossus InBev-AB. I didn’t see much coverage of the deal, and to be honest, it is a fairly run-of-the-mill M&A transaction that probably means little to folks outside of the beer/beverage market. Moreover, the story [...]
See if you can figure out what all this means: Local television should broadcast an English-language legal program to make foreign residents more aware of Chinese law, a partner from a local law firm proposed Tuesday at the annual meeting of the Shanghai People’s Congress. “If Shanghai wants to become an international finance and shipping [...]
There is a lot to dislike about China’s ginormous week-long holidays, one of which, Spring Festival/New Year, is coming up in a few weeks. The crowds are larger than you can imagine, requiring some sort of logarithmic scale of imagination to comprehend, the weird system of moving around weekend days is bizarre and uncomfortable, and [...]
Uh oh. Stop me if you’ve heard this story before: foreign multinational, State-dominated industry sector, and State-owned enterprises. Corruption? You better believe it’s possible. We won’t know whether this particular smoke will lead to an actual fire, but at this point, it doesn’t look like the allegations concerning bribes from Rolls-Royce to an executive at [...]
The New York Times has run a follow-up story to their earlier excellent coverage of Foxconn/Apple China labor problems and mitigation efforts. The article ran early in the week, but I was only able to get to it this morning because of VPN (i.e., technical) issues. The basic take away from “Signs of Changes Taking [...]
I know I said recently that I would limit my comments on the ongoing fight between the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and its Chinese counterparts over access to audit materials, but an Op/Ed in yesterday’s Financial Times forced my hand (or mouth, as it were). I’ll just do the lazy man’s cut-paste-comment method [...]
As my expertise on criminal law matters is quite limited, this is mostly a FYI post. If you live in certain jurisdictions, you may not be familiar with the concept of unsolicited judicial guidance being issued by the nation’s top court. In the U.S., for example, the Supreme Court may not simply write an opinion [...]
It’s not exactly breaking news to say that multinationals/foreign companies have it tough in China. Seems like every other day I’m writing something about a new investigation, enforcement campaign, or dispute involving a foreign firm here. Some times the criticism turns out to be fair, and other times the rumors are unfounded. Occasionally there are [...]
One year ago, the last time the U.S. Trade Representative’s office issued its Notorious Markets List, I wrote that China’s’ search engine giant Baidu had cleaned up its act so much in terms of intellectual property infringement that it was removed from the list entirely. This was no surprise as we have seen a visible [...]
You might remember the trouble Nike got into back in October when some consumers alleged that it maintained different product quality and pricing standards for Chinese customers than with consumers in other nations. This is by no means the first time that a foreign company has been attacked in China for treating customers differently, and [...]