All too often China business and legal information is slogan-filled and hype oriented:

  • Doing business in China is massively getting smoother as a whole host of administrative hurdles have been simplified.
  • Beijing strong commitment to enforce Intellectual Property rights has raised awareness in the public and the risks of counterfeiting have been notably reduced.
  • Unlike what prevailed until recent years, the enforcement of foreign commercial judgements and foreign contracts is getting commonly accepted by the People Republic of China’s judicial power.

Which one of these familiar statements is entirely correct? None, actually. Although none of them is plain wrong either…

Instead of pompously commenting recent progress toward simplification of PRC business legal environments, we will outline key actions to be considered before doing business in China. Actually, once you bump into problems there is a long and winding Chinese road ahead of you. And no more hype…

In the first set of short articles, we will be addressing some specific issues in a simple and jargon-free way and we hope it can be helpful:

  1. TRADEMARKS and the one-step strategy to stay away from the first come first serve registration nightmarish trap.
  2. CONTRACTS FORMALITIES or how avoiding self-confidently signing unenforceable contracts.
  3. NNN CONTRACTS or how getting sure the confidentiality agreements structure does not backfire.
  4. COMMERCIAL WAR FALLOUTS and why some piece of strategy re-thinking would be no small talks.
  5. SINGAPORE/HONG KONG HOLDINGS and where and why you might want to set up your Asian holding.

Article by Philippe Deltombe, Partner China Desk. AGM Abogados