Legal News

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…

Since the implementation of “General Provisions of Civil Law” on October 1, 2017, the difference on the Extinctive Prescription Rules between this law and “General Principles of Civil Law” has not been solved. Recently, the Supreme People’s Court issued the “Interpretation”, and clarified several rules. The details are as follows: 1.The two-year or one year prescriptive period has been abolished. Where the prescriptive period begins after “General Provisions of the Civil Law” come into force, the provision of Article 188 of “General Provisions of the Civil Law” on a three-year prescriptive period shall apply. A party’s claim for the application…

On 5th July, 2018, Shanghai No.1 Intermediate People’s Court issued the first “White Paper on Trials of Cases with the Non-competition Restrictive Covenant Disputes” (hereinafter referred to as the “White Paper”). The “White Paper” has selected 5 typical cases, and put forward the judicial judgement standards in dealing with the relevant disputes from 5 aspects, which has a certain guiding significance for the practical operation. 1．Where an employee is obliged to the non-competition restrictive covenant, shall not be employed by another employer which engages in production or business in the same type of products or provision of the same type…

The CPC and the State Council have jointly released the “Opinions” on 24th June 2018. The “Opinions” has mentioned the comprehensive objectives of the environmental governance, the guidance on the industry administration, the plan on the governance of atmosphere and water, and so on. For enterprises, the industry administration, the encouraging trends, and the supervision methods are worthy of attention. 1.Industry administration and the encouraging trends On the industry administration, the “Opinions” proposes to adjust the industrial layout, scale and structure of those industries which are not in line with the ecological function arrangement, which include: (1)To centralized rectify the…