Legal Notebook

Lee, the former employee of Huawei, left Huawei at the expiry of his labor contract, and Huawei gave him “2N” compensation. 1 year later, Lee was arrested on suspicion of extortion, and after being detained for 251 days, he was released without charge. This is the “Huawei 251 Incident”. In Qingdao, after resigned from the company, Yang filed alabor arbitration on the ground that the company had induced and coerced him, and required the company to pay economic compensation. In the end, both the court of the first instance and second instance supported Yang’s claim (See (2017) Lu 02 Min…

Company S applied for trademark registration with the combination of the Chinese character “没事儿” and a circular pattern. The Trademark Review and Adjudication Board (“TRAB”) rejected the application. Company S applied for a review with the reason that the sign had certain originality; however, TRAB rejected Company S’s application for the review in accordance with item 3, paragraph 1 of Article 11 of the “Trademark Law”, which says the sign is lack of distinctiveness. Company S filed a lawsuit against TRAB later then, after the first and second instance, Beijing High People’s Court rejected Company S’s claim. (See (2016) Jing…

During the employment, Shen obtained 2 professional qualification certificates (“PQCs”), which are the ISO9000 Quality System Chief Auditor and the Chief Auditor. Because the company undertook the relevant training expenses, PQCs were kept by the company. Shen resigned his position, and required the company to return PQCs, but the company refused. Shen brought the dispute to the labor arbitration committee, after the first and second instance, the court ordered the company to return PQCs. Unexpectedly, the company denied that it had kept PQCs. The judgment could not be enforced. Shen filed a lawsuit against the company again, and claimed a…

Are you confused with the title? If a party leases a warehouse for storage, the two contracts shall state the same thing, and there shall be no difference. However, from the perspective of the nature of a contract, the two contracts have huge differences on the rights and responsibilities, consequences of breach of contract, and the way to defense when there is a dispute. In the “Contract Law”, Chapter 13 stipulates relevant articles on a lease contract, and Chapter 20 stipulates relevant articles on a warehousing contract. A lease contract requires a lessor delivers the warehouse to the lessee who…

Company A dissolved the labor contract with Ding, with the reason that Ding had severely violated the “Administrative Measures on Labor Discipline of Company A”, due to Ding’s habitual absenteeism. Ding filed a labor arbitration against Company A. Ding stated that Company A released the internal rules on its official website, the reader had to click the link and download the document, so this was not the way to announce as required by relevant laws. The labor arbitration committee supported Ding’s claim, but both the courts of the first-instance and second-instance rejected Ding’s claim. The “Labor Contract Law” prescribes that…

A Canadian Mr. D was hired by Company W as its General Manager. Both parties signed a labor contract. Later, Company W dissolved the contract. Mr. D filed a lawsuit against Company W and claimed for the economic compensation. The case was reviewed by the first and second trials. Finally, the Guangdong Provincial High People’s Court reheard the case, and determined that the contact was invalid, which means Company W did not have to pay the economic compensation. (The plot has been simplified, for details, please find (2018) Yue Gao Fa Shen Jian Min Ti Zi No.63) Article 7 of…

If you type “金夫人” on the search engine Baidu, the first three links show “金夫人GOLDEN LADY” and relevant pictures; the official website of the trademark right owner Company J and its relevant information; and the promotion information with the words as “南京婚纱摄影领军品牌M公司”. Company J filed a lawsuit against Company M and Baidu by claiming that both parties had jointly infringed its trademark right and constituted false propaganda. The similar cases are not rare. More and more companies are using internet for promotion. In order to attract attention, some companies tried to stick a “tag” by using other party’s trademark. If…

More and more companies apply software in handling business operations. They have to sign a software service contract (“SSC”) or a software development contract (“SDC”). In practice, many companies only pay attention to the payment article, which stipulates that the commissioning party would pay upon the acceptance of the deliveries. This opinion is very dangerous. In fact, in the 57th issue of the “Legal Notebook”, we have analyzed the common risks and risk prevention methods from the perspective of the commissioning party in the paper “Risk Prevention for Software Development Contracts”. We will analyze the risks and risk prevention methods…

An enterprise with a longer history would have more employees who are close to the retirement age. Some of those employees may have less improvement in skills, and be lack of energy. If they still occupy the positions, the successors will have fewer opportunities to practice. Under such circumstance, more and more enterprises are considering to establish the early retirement system. In practice, the early retirement system generally includes 3 categories: (1) to terminate a labor contract by negotiation, and the enterprise would pay a compensation in a lump sum; (b) the employee quits the position, and does not have…

In the past many years, foreign-invested companies would purchase commercial insurance for foreigners instead of participate in social insurance, because China had not set any requirements in any laws or regulations, and normally, the offshore parent companies would participate in social insurance for foreigners in their own countries. The “Social Insurance Law” has come into force on July 1, 2011, in which it stipulates that foreigners employed within the territory of the People’s Republic of China shall participate in social insurance analogically in accordance with this Law. And soon afterwards, the “Interim Measures for Social Insurance System Coverage of Foreigners…