By Toffler Niemuth

For the non-lawyer among us, forming the legal entity for a new business can act as a small roadblock in the early stages. In China, formation can be a much larger roadblock, especially as a foreigner trying to navigate countless ministries, language barriers, develop the necessary guanxi, and just generally figure out how the system works.

Due to this, my idea was to have my business started in China in the name of a local partner who’d be responsible for all government, incorporation, and tax issues while leaving me with execution and operations side of the business. In fact, its much easier for Chinese to start a business (in China) than foreigners. Indeed, Chinese persons only need CNY1 to be able to start a business. Anyway, I thought this was the best plan, but then questions of selling, repatriation of profits, etc started to creep into my mind so I sought additional advice. Read the rest of “Starting a New Business in China (Pt 1): Legal Entity” or post a comment

Hello,
I know of a Chinese cement manufacturer that’s looking for funding to
replace their old standing kilns with new “dry” rotary kilns that will
increase efficiency and reduce pollution and is as a matter of fact,
mandated by the government.

Would you Read the rest of “Chinese cement manufacturers” or post a comment

By Alexander de Nerée

A drawback of my, in itself interesting profession, is that I encounter a lot of lying in my daily work. Contrary to popular believe it is not so much the lawyers that do the lying. Although I have to admit lawyers are generally not easily persuaded to part with information, let alone the truth, I prefer to think of what we do as skilful editing of the information to fit a certain version of the truth. No harm in that. That is what lawyers are paid to do.

But in order to edit the information, you will have to obtain the information first. And that is not as easy as it may sound. First there is the filter of the client’s hurt feelings that makes it difficult to obtain any relevant information. In its strong believe of the correctness and the fairness of its own position, the client filters out anything that appears to be in its disadvantage.

“They never complained about the quality of our products and now, out of the bleu, they want their money back and claim damages! That is unreasonable.” In itself  this is a good point which could legally be relevant but not if Read the rest of “Lying” or post a comment

By Ernie Tadla

This is the story of an entrepreneur building a profitable business by beating all the global big guys.
 
Dan Mintz was born and raised in Brooklyn, and was the youngest person to be accepted into the New York Academy of Performing Arts. He started in the movie business as a student extra in the movie Fame. He went to Los Angeles where he furthered his education and experience in film production and created good connections with some of the major movie studios.

In the early ’90s, he went to China to set up a joint venture for a major movie studio. This was shortly after the Tiananmen Square fiasco and the climate for partnerships with American firms was cold, if not frozen, particularly with the Ministry of Culture, which would have to be involved. Read the rest of “A China Success Story: Dan Mintz and DMG” or post a comment

My friend Chris Carr, dean of the CalPoly MBA program and the brains behind the International Business Tour blog has a very thoughtful post, entitled, “Will Paying More Change Behavior And Make Someone More Ethical?” Thoughtful, but wrong.

The post centers on whether paying more gets you better performance and/or better ethics, and Chris pretty much says it does not:

“Some suggested that we could solve the problem of too many defective products coming from China by paying more to the Chinese suppliers that make this stuff. I questioned that assumption, and still do…

Read the rest of “Why Paying More Is Good China Business” or post a comment >>