Legal News

Due to the lack of the laws and regulations on the protection of shareholders’ rights and interests, there are disputes in the judicial practice. In order to solve those disputes, on 22 Apr. 2019, the “Provisions V” was adopted at the 1,766th session of the Judicial Committee of the Supreme People’s Court, which has come into force on 29 Apr. 2019. The main contents are as follows. 1. Where a related party transaction compromises the interests of a company, even the required procedures have been conducted, the court could still require the relevant shareholders to undertake liabilities. Article 1 of…

On 23rd Apr., 2019, the Tenth Session of the Standing Committee of the 13th National People’s Congress passed a decision to amend the “Trademark Law”, which will be taken into force from 1st Nov., 2019. The amendment is aimed to strengthen the administration on 3 categories of behaviors. 1. Applications for trademark registrations in bad faith First, Paragraph 1 Article 4 of the “Trademark Law” has added that applications for trademark registrations in bad faith which are not intended for use shall be refused. Such circumstance could be taken as a basis for opposing a third-party trademark and as a…

In judicial practice, there are many doubts on the application of the “Enterprise Bankruptcy Law” in dealing with creditors’ rights and other issues, while hearing a bankruptcy case. In order to clarify some of those doubts, Provisions (III) as adopted at the 1762th meeting of the Judicial Committee of the Supreme People’s Court on 25 Feb. 2019, and has become effective on 28 Mar.2019. The main contents include: 1. For the common credits and the credits for the purpose of continuing operations during the bankruptcy proceeding, the later shall be prevail Article 2 of Provisions (III) prescribes that for the…

The Foreign Investment Law of the People’s Republic of China (the “Law”), as adopted at the 2nd Session of the Thirteenth National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China on March 15, 2019, is hereby issued, and shall come into force on January 1, 2020, which will replace the “Law on Foreign-funded Enterprises”, “Law on Sino-Foreign Cooperation Joint Ventures”, and “Law on Sino foreign Equity Joint Ventures”(the “Three Laws”). The following content deserves the attention of foreign-invested companies. 1. The approval system would be abolished, and the negative list system shall be implemented Article 4 prescribes that the State…

Many companies would choose Hong Kong as the jurisdiction place when they are involved in foreign civil and commercial activities. Till 2018, mainland and Hong Kong have signed arrangements on 4 aspects: (a) enforcement of arbitration awards; (b) recognition and enforcement of the judgments of civil and commercial cases under consensual jurisdiction; (c) recognition and enforcement of civil judgments in matrimonial and family cases; and (d) to be commissioned obtaining of evidence in civil and commercial cases. In order to cooperate more comprehensively, the Mainland and Hong Kong signed the Arrangement on 18 Jan.2019, and the Arrangement will take effect…

Enterprise Deregistration involves many departments, such as market regulation, taxation, social security, commercial, custom and so on. While dealing with the procedures related to enterprise deregistration, sometimes, an enterprise might be confused about the procedures. Recently, SAIC, MOHRSS, MOFCOM, GAOC and STA have jointly issued the Circular. According to the Circular, the relevant departments would optimize or simplify the procedures for the enterprise deregistration from the following aspects: 1. One-network service To insert a deregistration session on the integrated government service platform, which could update the deregistration information to the relevant departments, and those departments could guide the enterprises on…

For those IP infringement cases, many IP right owner won the case, but might have lose the market competitive advantage; or the owner’s trade secrets have been disclosed, which means its loss could not be recovered. In view of this, recently, the Supreme People’s Court released the “Regulations of the Supreme People’s Court on Several Issues concerning the Application of Law in the Review of Cases for the Preservation of Actions in Intellectual Property Rights” (hereinafter refers to “Regulations”), in which the preservation of actions in IPR has been prescribed. The main content includes: 1.The circumstances which could applied the…

IP disputes related to Patent and etc. require more technique knowledge. In order to manage the judicial criteria on IP disputes, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress has approved the Decision on 26th Oct., 2018. Then main contents include: 1.To set a cross-grade second instance system According to the current “Civil Procedure Law” and “Administrative Procedure Law”, the party who dissatisfies with the judgment or ruling of the first instance shall files an appeal to a higher level court. However, in consideration of the special technique requirements, the “Decision” stipulates that the following cases shall be adjudicated by…

In recent years, the legislation and enforcement of the cybersecurity have been strengthened continuously. Recently, the Ministry of Public Security released the “Provisions on Internet Security Supervision and Inspection by Public Security Authorities”, which will be implemented from 1 Nov. 2018. For those enterprises which has an official website, or be a online sale platform, or provide internet information service, it is recommended to go through the internal management on those website, platform, or service, in accordance with the inspection requirements in the “Provisions”. The “Provisions” stipulates 3 categories of inspection, which are the general inspection, the targeted inspection and…

The fundamental law for the e-commerce industry —- “E-Commerce Law” has been issued on 31st Aug., 2018, and will come into fore on 1st Jan., 2019. The promulgation of this law has prescribed many regulations on the obligations and liabilities of the e-commerce operator, and other aspects, which might impact the parties who are involved in e-commerce transactions. “E-Commerce Law” is divided into 7 chapters and 89 articles, including the definition and obligations of e-commerce operators, the formation and implementation of e-commerce contracts, the dispute resolution and so on. In practice, the disputes between consumers and e-commerce operators are very…