International trade
Eversheds' China business group regularly advises clients on negotiating all aspects of trading with Chinese companies. Our experienced bi-lingual team is co-located in Shanghai and London and can add significant value through our knowledge of how Chinese businesses operate and negotiate.
We regularly advise in:
- agency and distribution arrangements
- sale and supply contracts
- distribution franchising and agency models
- supply chain
- customs or VAT
- market access.
All our teams include competition specialists who are experts in the new and developing antitrust rules and we can also draw on the knowledge of Eversheds' international competition law group to ensure that the agreements adopted comply with all relevant national and international legislation.
The team's most significant experience in this field includes:
- advising a major international iron ore mining company on its proposed supply agreement with a Chinese state-owned energy and mining company with related contracts including the financing of a port facility in Brazil. This was a multi-million pound deal requiring the integration of a large number of specialists from multiple jurisdictions,
- advising a Norwegian energy and manufacturing company on the documentation and approval of a compensation trade project in central China,
- advising a UK oil and gas services company in its engineering and software agreements with Chinese entities,
- for a large UK gas supplier, drafted their standard gas sales and purchase contracts for use in China,
- assisting a large UK gas supplier on distribution arrangements which addressed cross-jurisdictional product liability, competition and export control issues,
- advising a multinational auto industry's PRC holding company on the restructuring of sales operations,
- advising a leading anti-virus solutions provider and several western IT companies on software distribution and licensing,
- Advising a Fortune 500 chemical company on the EU and PRC Antitrust Law impact on proposed distribution arrangements with a major Chinese distributor.
In China Eversheds LLP is a foreign law firm registered with the Ministry of Justice of the People's Republic of China. Under current Chinese regulations, we are allowed to provide information concerning the impact of the Chinese legal environment, but, like all international law firms with offices in the PRC, we are not authorized to issue opinions, determinations, or certifications in respect of, the application of PRC law. We work in cooperation with a number of Chinese law firms. Should you require a legal opinion in respect of any Chinese law matter, we would be happy to assist you in obtaining an opinion from a Chinese firm.