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The 12th Amendment to the “Criminal Law” was reviewed and approved by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress on December 29, 2023, and will come into effect on March 1, 2024. This revision will bring a significant impact on anti-fraud policies of foreign-funded enterprises. To add liabilities to the crime of offering bribes, which may curb this crime, but also may reduce the possibility to persuade the bribers to provide evidence. It is very difficult to find evidence of bribery, because of its concealment. Many bribes are in cash, or transferred to a third party by which the…

Generally speaking, an employer should complete the social insurance registration for new employee from the date of employment, by which can avoid the risk that the employer has to bear all liabilities when a new employee suffers a work-related injury before the employer completes the registration (referred to as the “gap period”). However, in practice, different companies have different practices. Some complete such registration on the date of employment; some complete such registration in a specified period every month, such as from 15th to 20th in each month, so those employees whose employment date is latter than 20th of the…

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…