Legal Notebook

Miss Wang brought a piece of cake in a store. After the payment, she found that the identified shelf life had expired, so she required the store to refund the payment, and pay a compensation equivalent to ten times of the price of the piece of cake. The store agreed to do so. A few days later, Miss Wang’s colleague Miss Zhang bought a piece of cake in the same store, after a few bites, she found a fly in the cake, thought of Miss Wang’s experience, she asked the store for the same compensation as Miss Wang, however, the…

In recent years, the protection of personal information (“PI”) becomes a hot topic in China. Although, Personal Information Protection Law has not been promulgated yet, the legislation shows the trend on strengthening the protection of PI, especially, after Decision on Strengthening Information Protection on Networks (“Decision”) has been promulgated at the end of 2012, the employers’ obligation of PI protection has been legislatively defined to a certain extent. General Principles of the Civil Law and Tort Liability Act have limited PI protection in the scope of personal privacy, but have not regulated the collection and usage of PI by enterprises.…

Mr. Zhang was an automotive chassis engineer of an auto parts company (“S”), and his monthly salary was 20,000 Yuan. He had knowledge about some S’s trade secrets, such as chassis’ data and drawings. When Mr. Zhang departed, S and him signed an Non-competition Agreement (“Agreement”), in which stipulated that he should not work for a competing employer that produces the same type of products, or being engaged in the same type of business against S, or establish his own business to produce the same type of products or engage in the same type of business, within 2 years after…

Well-known trademarks mean the trademarks, which are widely known to the relevant sector of the public and enjoy a high reputation in China (Article 2 of “The Provision on the Recognition and Protection of Well-Known Trademarks”, hereinafter referred to as “Provision”). Registration is not the precondition for well-known trademarks, but according to Article 13 of Trademark Law, for well-known trademarks, which have not been registered in China, the protection scope is limited to “the identical or similar goods”, it means that the principle of “similar class protection” is applied; for well-known trademarks registered in China, the protection scope is extended…

The resident representative office of an American company (“S”) recruited Mr. Gao as its administration manager directly, instead of entrusting a labor dispatch company to recruit personnel. S and Mr. Gao agreed to a monthly salary of RMB20, 000, both parties had not signed a labor contract. 4 years later, S dismissed Mr. Gao, and Mr. Gao asked for RMB 80,000 as the economic compensation. However, S refused to pay such payment. Mr. Gao submitted the dispute to the court, the court determined that the relationship between S and Mr. Gao was not the labor relationship, and did not support…

In accordance with “Company Law” and relevant regulations, the investor may make capital contributions (“CC”) in other non-currency properties that may be assessed on the basis of currency and may be transferred according to law, excluding the properties that shall not be treated as CC according to any laws or administrative regulations. In view of this, it has the possibility to make CC in the term of land use right (“LUR”) in principle. However, legally transference is the key element in deciding whether the special LUR can be used to make CC. In practice, the possibility and risks of the…

Shadow (“S”) is an electronic components manufacturer. In order to improve efficiency, S issues “Rules of KPI”, a hundred-mark system is applied, in which 40 points for fulfillment of task, 40 points for attitude, 20 points for attendance, and points for attitude is scored by the direct supervisor. An employee shall be deemed as disqualified if he/she gets below 60 points, if so, S shall have the right to adjust his/her position to a lower rank, and cut down his/her salary. At the end of the year, manager of Administrative Dept. Ms. Zhang only got 40 points, in which 20…

“Regulations on the Administration of Recall of Defective Auto Products” (“Regulations”) was promulgated on Oct. 10, 2012, and will come into force on Jan. 1, 2013. Being the new regulation which has a higher legislation hierarchy than “Provisions on the Administration of Recall of Defective Auto Products” (“Provisions”), it has stipulated new articles, such as the highest penalty is 10% of the value of defective auto products, the sharing system of auto-product information within multiple departments, the initiative investigation right of the national quality supervision department, which catch the eyes of public consumers. How does the New Regulations work? Will…

The company “Shadow” (“S”) thought that Ms. A had disclosed the secret of S and dismissed her. After the accomplishment of arbitration on labor issues, and litigation, since S could not provide enough evidence, S was ordered to resume the labor relation. A was the HR director of S, but after the litigation, S requires her to work at a subsidiary alone. There is neither computer nor telephone in the new office, not to say signal for mobile phone. The office has been installed with 2 cameras. S also issues 5 notification of punishment to Ms. A in a day,…

In the procedure of the import and export declaration, to identify the commodity classification (“CC”, viz choosing the Tariff Code) is a skill requires high technicality and professionalism. In practice, different enterprises, even different administrations of customs (“AC”) may identify different CCs for even same goods. Where an enterprise declares a Tariff Code which is different from the identification of AC, it may be deemed by AC as an untruthful declaration (“UD”) and imposed of administrative punishment (“AP”), or be deemed as smuggling and imposed of criminal punishment. Those punishments may not only bring loss to those enterprises, but also…