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By Guo Sun Lee  Hayden Flinn, King & Wood Mallesons’ Hong Kong Office

lee_guosunOn 10 July 2015 the Hong Kong Legislative Council agreed to extend the existing profits tax exemption for offshore funds to PE funds. The new exemptions, set out in the Inland Revenue (Amendment) Bill 2015 (the “Bill”), will come into effect shortly when the Bill is gazetted and will apply to transactions carried out after 1 April 2015.

The amendments, designed to address the concerns of offshore PE funds and promote Hong Kong’s status as an asset management hub, broaden the existing exemption to cover transactions in securities of certain private companies incorporated outside Hong Kong, to remove the requirement to transact through SFO licensed entities for ‘qualifying funds’ and to extend coverage to include special purpose vehicles.
Continue Reading Amended profits tax exemption a welcome change for private equity funds

By Fernando Badenes, King & Wood Mallesons’ Madrid Office

The last step of the reform of the electricity sector carried out by the Spanish Government has been the final straw. That step was the enactment of a Ministerial Order that has set the parameters of remuneration for different renewable energy technologies. This regulatory change supposes the retrenchment of the profitability that the Spanish state had promised and stimulated and which had been the reason for fresh private equity funds in the sector. This change of regime was initiated some years ago by the Spanish Government with the aim of reducing the tariff deficit of the system and has triggered foreign alarms to investors who had invested in the renewal energy sector relying on the Government’s promises on keeping premium fees throughout the lifetime of the plants. These investors have now initiated arbitration proceedings under the protection of the Energy Charter Treaty (“ECT”) to claim from the Spanish State fees lost as a result of this change of regulation.
Continue Reading Energy Charter Treaty: The umbrella for international arbitration against Spanish energy renewal

By Yin Juquan and Pan Faluan, King & Wood Mallesons’ Labor Group

yin_juquanAfter an employee has been illegally terminated, a court or arbitrator may order their employer to reinstate them and compensate them for lost wages. How will the amount of lost wages be calculated, given that the employee was not actually working for the employer during the relevant time period?

We will give a brief introduction to this topic through a review and analysis of Judgment no. 11644, (2014), Civil Tribunal, Beijing Second Intermediate People’s Court.

1. Summary of the Case

Employee A joined Company B on July 11, 2011. The labor contract between the two parties stated that A would be paid a monthly base salary of RMB 12,100 and a monthly performance bonus of RMB 9,900 (in the PRC, performance bonuses are generally fixed sums). As of January 2012, the base salary and performance bonus had been adjusted to RMB 14,520 and RMB 11,880 respectively (26,400 RMB in total). Company B terminated its labor contract with A on July 30, 2012.
Continue Reading Once a Labor Contract Has Been Illegally Terminated, How Will A Court Calculate Lost Wages?

By Jiang Junlu  Li Hongchuan King & Wood Mallesons’ Labor Group 

jiang_junlu1. Where no agreement is reached, the law provides no remedy

Coming out of the conference room, Zhang Ran appeared depressed. Leaning on her elbow at the desk, Zhang Ran felt she had met her biggest difficulty since taking the office of HR director. In March, the Head Office informed her that all the legal departments of its China entities would be integrated into the Asia Pacific head office, and accordingly, only the position of Legal Business Partner would still be offered in the China entities. Since then, Zhang Ran had this challenge: how to negotiate with the Legal Director at her branch about the change of position? When she greeted the Legal Director in the office, even the expression on her face became unnatural. Today, they finally had a chance to talk about this matter directly for an hour and a half. During the conversation, the Legal Director expressed reluctance about the change and even struck the desk in anger. At last, the negotiation ended in acrimony. “Oh my goodness…Just a change in title and no change in terms of salaries or other treatment, how can he be so stubborn?” Zhang Ran complained to her colleagues in a low voice. 
Continue Reading The Deadlock in Labor Law

By Liang Yanling(Linda)  Wang Zhaogang  King&Wood Mallesons’ Labor Group

untitledThose who watch Hollywood films and American television shows will be familiar with the following scene: A hapless employee is informed of his termination by his boss and must immediately pack up his things and leave the office. The employee is then seen leaving, carrying a Bankers Box, possibly engendering sympathy from the audience. Chinese films do not typically show such scenes because in China, employers are not allowed to fire someone at-will in this manner.

Unlike At-Will Employment as found in the US context, Chinese law stipulates select grounds under which employers are allowed to dismiss their employees. Regardless of the number of employees terminated, whether it is one layoff or a mass layoff, the employer shall either reach a consensus on mutual termination with the employee(s) through consultation, or unilaterally terminate the employees under certain circumstances in accordance with relevant clauses in the law. In a mass layoff, employers may use both mutual consultation and unilateral termination. For instance, the employer may consider unilateral termination if the previous attempt to reach a mutual termination has failed.
Continue Reading How to Determine the Legal Ground for a Layoff: What You Need to Know——Article 1 in a series on layoffs

By Mark Hoyle, King & Wood Mallesons’ Dubai Office

Mark HoylePublic policy, as any student of English law knows, is “an unruly horse” which, depending on the rider, can either turn out to be one of the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse or a shining knight. After the issue of an award, just as a tribunal or the successful party feels that it is safe to relax and exit the psychological bunker that often shadows arbitrations in the UAE, the ace in the pack, high of course, is played and the immortal words “public policy” send a shiver through the process.

Once upon a time the arbitrators could sign at the end of the Award and breathe a sigh of relief that their job was done. But gradually, and with creeping vigour, the drums beat and the Tribunal is told that additional requirements must be fulfilled, such as initialling each page of the award in order for it to be valid. Nobody is able to point to a real legal basis of course, but never mind. Then, as if there is enough unpaid work for a tribunal, the watch phrase is “sign on each page” of the Award. At last, some might say – surely that is the end of it! But no, the latest wheeze is that each page of the award and the appendices must also be signed. No Court decision of course, no legal ruling, no change of the law.
Continue Reading Public policy, arbitration in the UAE & challenges to the norm

By Chen Changhui King&Wood Mallesons’ Intellectual Property Group

untitledCivil enforcement is the last step of civil litigation (incl. intellectual property (IP) litigation), which plays a key role to realise civil rights. Whether or not it operates smoothly tends to be a weighted indicator to a nation’s legal development.

Enforcement constitutes the last yet crucial step of the protection of IP right holders’ interests. However, similar to other civil disputes, arduous enforcement has always perplexed IP right holders, which may cause that they cannot get the full extent of compensation (or even no compensation at all). Given that, how to avoid such a problem has become an intractable issue for both IP right holders and their attorneys.
Continue Reading Enforcement: the last mile of intellectual property litigation

By Yang Hua  Ding Xianjie  and He Tongjun  King&Wood Mallesons’ Intellectual Property Group

untitleduntitled 01What should we concern: when determining the level of similarity between trademarks, it should be limited to comparing the part that the citation mark has acquired the right to exclusive use with the mark in application. The part that is disclaimed of the exclusive right to use in an early registration even if has distinctiveness should not constitute a valid part for comparison and impede registration of a later filed trademark.

“Disclaiming the right to exclusive use” in trademark application refers to the situation in which the proprietor makes a disclaimer to give up any right to exclusive use for a part of the trademark, in order to avoid rejection of the whole application due to registrability issue of the disclaimed part. Signs prohibited from registration due to lack of distinctiveness are the part that is more commonly disclaimed of the right to exclusive use. In practice, some proprietors also disclaim the right to exclusive use for a part that has distinctiveness (the Disclaimed Part), which gives rise to the issue referred above, whether the Disclaimed Part will function to impede the registration by others of a later filed application.
Continue Reading Trademark comparing: disclaimed part no longer valid even with distinctiveness

By Ou Xiuping  Xu Jing Yin Ji  King&Wood Mallesons’ Intellectual Property Group

01The legal framework of service invention is stipulated by the PRC Patent Law and the Regulation on Protection of New Varieties of Plants. Also in April 2015, the State Council solicited public opinion of the Regulations on Service Invention (Draft), which has been amended for the fourth time[1]. This article will closely study and analyse hot-spot issues in PRC legal practice with respect to disputes over service invention on the case study, including:
Continue Reading Invention for hire in PRC: what should practitioners know – I

By Yang Hua  Wang Fang  King&Wood Mallesons’ Intellectual Property Group

untitledWhat should we concern: registered trademark, filed in the name of others without others’ authorisation should be deemed as “obtained through means of fraud” and should be announced invalid.

DELTASOFA’S S.R.L. (“DELTASOFA”) was established on September 19, 1985 by Vincenzo Liborio Calia, a skilled master carpenter in Europe who in 1965 started to design and produce sofas in south Italy and created the famous sofa brand “caliaitalia”. Nowadays the “caliaitalia” sofa products are sold in countries in North America, the Middle East and the Far East.

On August 1 2008, a Guangdong company filed a trademark application for the mark “caliaitalia” under No. 6875537 (hereinafter as “mark in dispute”) in the name of “Calia Italia S.p.A” (the former name of DELTASOFA”). In 2011, this Guandong company, again in the name of “Calia Italia S.p.A.”, signed the trademark assignment documents regarding the mark in dispute and had the mark assigned to its affiliated company.
Continue Reading Trademark invalid: registering in others’ name with no authorisation