All posts by legal

In the past many years, foreign-invested companies would purchase commercial insurance for foreigners instead of participate in social insurance, because China had not set any requirements in any laws or regulations, and normally, the offshore parent companies would participate in social insurance for foreigners in their own countries. The “Social Insurance Law” has come into force on July 1, 2011, in which it stipulates that foreigners employed within the territory of the People’s Republic of China shall participate in social insurance analogically in accordance with this Law. And soon afterwards, the “Interim Measures for Social Insurance System Coverage of Foreigners…

Bei Ji Rong (“BJR”) Underwear had published a creative advertisement. The spokesperson Zhao Benshan wore the BJR thermal underwear. He was hijacked by aliens, and frozen in an ice brick. After unfrozen, he was uninjured, and he told the aliens: “Keep Warm, Wear BJR, everyone knows on the earth.” Chen brought a piece of BJR thermal underwear. Later then, he filed a lawsuit against the manufacturer and Zhao Benshan. He claimed that the advertisement was a false advertisement. Although there is controversy in practice, both the court of the first instance and the second instance had rejected Chen’s claim. The…

During the lunch break, Yang went home to get a work operation permit, and got injured in a traffic accident on his way to work. Yang filed an application for ascertainment of the work-related injury (“WRI”). However, the authority determined that this was not a WRI. Both the courts of the first instance, and second instance supported the authority’s decision [(2017) Hu 01 Xing Zhong No.11]. Coincidentally, Wu suffered from a sudden disease during the lunch break, and died within 48 hours due to ineffective rescue. The local authority determined that this was a WRI. The employer filed an objection…

Liu took a short video for his self-driving trip to skiing by driving a Brand A car, and shared such video on the online platform. Company A used this video in a client’s advertisement, which was released via WeChat official account and Weibo. Liu filed a lawsuit against Company A for the infringement of copyright. Recently, the court decided that Company A had infringed Liu’s copyright, and ordered Company A to apologize and compensate RMB500, 000 to Liu. This case is the first copyright infringement case by using a short video in an advertisement. And the compensation amount is the…

Zhou was dismissed by Company A, and the leaving reason stated in the Employment Separation Certificate (“ESC”) covered two aspects, (a) Zhou has seriously violated the company’s rules and procedures; and (b) Zhou is incompetent to his position. Zhou insisted that such words would affect his job search, and required Company A to delete such words. Company A refused, and Zhou filed to the labor arbitration committee. Finally, the court rejected Zhou’s claim. The main legal basis for issuing an ESC is Article 24 of the “Regulations for the Implementation of the Labor Contract Law” (the “Regulations”), which requires the…

In practice, many manufacturers would sell products to authorized distributors, and then the authorized distributors would sell to the end customers. Manufacturers focus on R&D and manufacturing, while distributors focus on market development. If both parties could cooperate well, then it is a win-win situation. However, due to many reasons, for example, the distribution contract has been expired and both parties have no willingness to renew; or both parties have disputes on the payments or quality and so on, which leads the termination of the contract. After then, if a manufacturer does business with its distributor’s clients directly, normally, the…

Tan left the post for a “double eyelid surgery”, and the company dissolved the labor contract because of her absenteeism. Several days later, Tan provided the sick leave certificate issued by hospital to the company. However, the company held that Tan asked for sick leave because of cosmetic surgery instead of illness, so Tan should ask for a personal leave instead of a sick leave. Since Tan failed to apply for a personal leave, the company had the right to dissolve the labor contract. Tan filed the dispute to the labor arbitration committee, finally, Tan failed in the arbitration proceeding.…