作为世界第三大贸易国家，随着经济的发展和技术的进步，中国的进出口额逐年大幅增加。其中，大型成套设备进出口占了相当比重。与一般国际货物贸易相比，大型成套设备贸易集货物贸易、知识产权及服务贸易于一体，商务、技术、法律、金融问题互相交织，其复杂性格外突出。加之大型成套设备往往价格昂贵，动辄就以千万美元甚至上亿美元计，对企业的正常生产经营活动至关重要。因此，大型成套设备买卖一旦发生纠纷，不仅法律难点多，而且如果不能妥善解决，后果也将十分严重，故此应当格外予以重视。
结合大型成套设备买卖通常易发生的法律纠纷，重点应关注以下几方面：Continue Reading 大型成套设备买卖合同中的法律问题（一）
China has issued a raft of measures aimed at moulding its auto industry to meet both the challenges posed by the global economic crisis and possibly even use the crisis to achieve long held strategic government goals. The short term goal appears to be to boost domestic consumption of cars and thereby stimulate the economy. The longer term goals have been previously enunciated in NDRC auto policy, namely consolidate the industry, build some national auto champions and build quality “green” cars. According to The New York Times, China is aiming to become a global leader in manufacturing electric cars.
Continue Reading China Retools its Auto Industry to meet Global Challenges
The Ministry of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China (“MOFCOM”) made the decision to prohibit the proposed acquisition of China Huiyuan Juice Group Limited by the Coca-Cola Company (the “Transaction”) under Article 28 of the Anti-Monopoly Law of People’s Republic of China (the “AML’). We believe the following three negative influences on competition were the primary considerations taken into account by MOFCOM:
Susan Ning, Partner, International Trade
Often, when Chinese lawyers deal with foreign-related cases they see the term "attorney-client privilege" in the foreign lawyer issued legal opinions and memorandums. Furthermore, many foreign lawyers would like to know if their communication with the Chinese lawyers they work with is provided the same amount of protection as their communication with their clients.
Black’s Law Dictionary defines attorney-client privilege as a client’s right to refuse to disclose, and to prevent anyone else from disclosing, confidential communications between him or her and his or her attorney. This privilege prevents attorneys from disclosing their communications with their clients. Furthermore, this protection prevents any other party, including, the attorney from using any information that could be considered "attorney-client privilege" as evidence in a litigation. However, there are exceptions. For example, an attorney has a duty to disclose privileged information if the disclosure is related to criminal activities. The attorney-client privilege was established to encourage honest communication between an attorney and his or her clients. This opportunity for honest communication will reduce the chance that a client will intentionally or unintentionally engage in an illegal activity due to ineffective communication with his or her attorney.
Gui Hongxia and Li Xiang of King & Wood’s Dispute Resolution Group
Continue Reading Attorney-client Privilege: Extended to Foreign Lawyers in China?
By Mark Schaub King & Wood Mallesons’ FDI Group
According to Chinese media reports last year, six children died and nearly 300,000 others were sickened after consuming milk powder containing melamine, a toxic industrial chemical that was added to show a higher protein level in the milk powder. The melamine contamination of dairy products was discovered to be widespread. Concerns about food safety have surfaced in China long before the melamine dairy scare: sub-standard baby milk produced in Anhui, Longkou noodles containing lead from Shandong, fake alcohol in Guangdong, soy sauce made from human hair (still not clear how that works in practice), eggs with melamine – this list is long and a cause of grave concern to Chinese consumers.
Continue Reading PRC Food Safety Law: Food for Thought
Brief introduction of the currently effective international conventions regarding protection of the looted cultural properties, and the limitation of these conventions as well as the legal hardships for China to retrieve looted cultural properties from abroad.
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Continue Reading China’s Lost Treasures: Retrieval of Looted Cultural Relics
Kalley Chen, Dai Chen and Xu Zifeng King & Wood Mallesons’ Security Group
Australia has had a range of general and sector-specific privacy laws for 20 years. At the Federal level, the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) initially regulated the way in which Commonwealth agencies dealt with the personal information of Australians. The scope of the Privacy Act was expanded to also cover the handling of individuals’ credit information and, more broadly in 2001, to cover all private sector organisations and the way in which they collect, use and disclose personal information. Individual States and Territories of Australia also have specific privacy laws that regulate the way State-based agencies deal with personal information, and laws relating to privacy are also found in a variety of legislative contexts.
Continue Reading Privacy Overhaul Imminent for Australia–A Reference to China
Under the United Nation’s Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), “developed country Parties should provide new and additional financial resources to support the transfer of technology and take all practical steps to promote, facilitate and finance the transfer of, or access to, environmentally sound technologies and know how to developing country Parties.” However, a UNFCCC report revealed that a large portion of developing nations do not take advantage of CDM projects to import technology.
As long as technology transfer from developed countries is a convenient low-cost means for China to reduce GHG emissions, why doesn’t China have more CDM projects that involve technology transfer? [continue reading to see our analysis]
Wang Rui, Partner, International Trade
Continue Reading Clean Development Mechanism: Untapped Potential
At first glance, the goals of intellectual property law and competition law might appear to conflict. IPR owners are granted statutory rights to control access and charge monopoly rents to others for use of their rights. IPR owners may also use terms of IPR licences to regulate downstream activities of their distributors, such as imposing exclusivity, territorial restraints and price restraints. Competition law, on the other hand, is directed at curtailing such market power which may prove harmful to economic welfare.
Continue Reading Intersect Between Intellectual Property Law And Competition Law
By: Andrew Tan, a Partner Arculli Fong & Ng (in association with King & Wood, PRC Lawyers)
1.Introduction
On 6 June 2008, the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (the “HKSAR”) announced the “Arrangements for the Implementation of Clean Development Mechanism (“CDM”) Projects in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region” (the “Implementation Arrangements”). The Implementation Arrangements have been developed following consultations between the National Development and Reform Commission (“NDRC”) of China and the Environment Protection Department (“EPD”) of the HKSAR. The Implementation Arrangements sets out the specific procedures for Hong Kong companies to conduct CDM projects in Hong Kong…Continue Reading Renewable Projects in Hong Kong may Lead to Additional Reward?