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Company A, a US funded enterprise in Jiangsu, and Company B, a Japanese funded enterprise in Shanghai, have signed a sales contract, in which stipulates that in the event of a dispute, either party may submit it to an arbitration institution in Hong Kong for arbitration. Is this agreement valid? A typical viewpoint is that one of the basic principles of civil laws is the “autonomy of will”, and such agreements should be valid. In fact, such viewpoint is incorrect. The attitude of the Supreme People’s Court is very clear. In Article 83 of the “Answers to Practical Issues in…

At noon on July 31, 2017, Wong completed his resignation procedures and left the company. Unexpectedly, Wong was dead in a traffic accident on his way home. He was not liable in this accident. Wong’s family filed an application for work-related injury recognition, the Human Resources and Social Security Bureau of Shanghai Pudong New District approved the application. The company refused to accept this recognition, and filed an administrative lawsuit against the bureau. Both the courts of the first instance and second instance supported the bureau. ((2018) Hu 01 Xing Zhong No.1436). According to Article 14, Paragraph 6 of the…

At the end of November 2023, a judgment by the Beijing Internet Court sparked heated discussions. In this case, the plaintiff used AI to generate images and published them on Xiaohongshu (an app), the defendant used those images in his article. The plaintiff filed a lawsuit to the court on the grounds of copyright infringement. The first instance judgment of the Beijing Internet Court held that the images generated by AI in this case should be deemed as “works” protected by the “Copyright Law”, so the defendant has constituted a copyright infringement. In this case, the Beijing Internet Court pointed…

The labor contract signed between a company in Beijing and Tian is valid until October 8, 2021. The company sent a renewal notice to Tian on October 8, 2021, but the two parties did not reach an agreement on the renewal afterwards. Later, Tian filed a labor arbitration, one of his claims is that he requested the company to pay compensation for failure to provide 30 days prior notice. The labor arbitration, the court of the first instance, and the court of the second instance all supported this claim ((2023) Jing 02 Min Zhong 7836). Many people may be surprised…

In order to contribute to the community and enhance awareness for brands, many companies would sponsor public service activities, themed conference, competitions, and etc., no matter voluntarily or not. Such sponsorship is supposed to be a win-win event, but if the sponsorship is implemented in a wrong way, it may bring risks to those companies. Generally, the risks related to sponsorship include the following: Firstly, it may constitute commercial bribery. Companies provide sponsorship for gain competitive advantages may be recognized as commercial bribery by administrative authorities and judicial authorities, because such sponsorships may be deemed as violations of the “Anti-unfair…

At the end of each year, various business gatherings and enterprises’ annual parties are typical programs. Alcohol is one of the links in those activities. Some people may be tipsy, some people may get drunk, and some people may die. If an individual died due to drinking too much alcohol in a business gathering, whether such death could be identified as a work-related injury? It depends. Firstly, if an employee got drunk and met the intoxication standard, such circumstance shall not be identified as a work-related injury. Both Article 37 of the “Social Security Law” and Article 16 of the…