Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
Posted on | January 1, 2012 | No Comments
Hi everyone, I wanted to wish you and your families a belated Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year in 2012. ShengDanJie he XinNian Kuai Le!
Hoping the best for all of you–from my family to yours, and wishing hope, joy, peace, and prosperity to all of you.
China Dialogue hosting China Environmental Law Event – 9/27
Posted on | August 8, 2011 | 1 Comment
Heard this week about a very interesting event being hosted by China Dialogue and K&L Gates in San Francisco entitled “Environmental Law in China: Implications for Bay Area Business“. Highly recommending this event as one of the speakers will be Charlie McElwee who used to author the China Environmental Law Blog.
The event promises to cover:
- How China’s environmental regulatory and legal frameworks are structured;
- How environmental regulations are changing;
- The development of Chinese “watch dog” groups and their increasing interactions with multinational businesses;
- And the potential risks and liabilities that accompany non-compliance.
Some of the details here and more after the jump:
Tuesday, September 27 2011
K&L Gates San Francisco (4 Embarcadero Center, 12th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94111)
5:30-6pm – Reception
6-7:30pm – Event
Review of Kosher Chinese: Fun Read.
Posted on | August 1, 2011 | 1 Comment
Disclaimer: I received a free review copy of Kosher Chinese: Living, Teaching, and Eating with China’s Other Billion from the publisher.
Kosher Chinese is a quick read, pretty entertaining, and for those of you who don’t know much about Chinese culture and China, may be somewhat shocking. (some of the stereotypical comments they make about Americans, Christians, eating pork, etc.) But it’s a very interesting view at what is quickly apparent to many who are in China: the Chinese perspective on life not all that different from post-modern culture where people construct all sorts of meaning for themselves. And it’s a mixture of capitalism, the Party, traditional Chinese values, and whatever else people can grab a hold onto. (Actually very American-like if you ask me)
Attorney-client privilege in the EU
Posted on | January 13, 2011 | 1 Comment
Happy New Year! Perhaps a better post title would be the lack of any attorney-client privilege if you are in-house or an international attorney, which constitutes most of the readers of this blog. (myself included) I am sitting in a very interesting session right now by Emmanuel Gybels, a partner at Crowell & Moring’s Brussels office covering the attorney-client privilege in the European Union.
From the outset, in the EU, there are a few components to the privilege:
- Documents must be written for the purpose of exercising the rights of defense
- Counsel must be independent, which means that they cannot be an employment relationship
- And be properly qualified in the EU as an attorney
All of these conditions from the Akzo case coming out of the International Court of Justice.
Some practical tips for FCPA compliance
Posted on | November 11, 2010 | 8 Comments
Back in office after the 8th Annual Corporate Counsel Conference West Coast the past 2 days. A wealth of good information, but I found a few of the sessions to be particularly helpful for me personally, and also likely more helpful to my readers. One of these was about the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), which I blog about repeatedly, and has only gained more and more attraction over the past couple of years.
Andy Hinton, Global Ethics & Compliance Officer & AGC at Google, and Michael Ward, AGC & Director of Compliance at Adobe had a number of tips for in-house compliance professionals. None of this was news to many in the room, but what we constantly need are good reminders if we’re going to keep on top of things.
The ICNL is hiring legal advisors
Posted on | November 2, 2010 | No Comments
Recently got an email that may be of interest to some of you. The International Center for Non-profit Law is hiring for three attorney positions! Details after the jump.
Legal Advisors
Washington, D.C.The International Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ICNL) is expanding and seeking three lawyers to serve as Legal Advisors for projects in the Newly Independent States (NIS) of the former Soviet Union, the Middle East/North Africa, and Latin America. These are full-time positions.
Trying out a new look
Posted on | November 2, 2010 | No Comments
Sorry for the lack of posting. As some of you may have seen, my blog got hacked by some group who left behind a calling card/tagging of their group. Had to get it cleaned up before I could do anything. And so as a result, I’m trying out a new theme as well until I have time to really work stuff out.
free fcpa cle: 9/30 in burlingame, ca
Posted on | September 15, 2010 | 1 Comment
Got an email the other day for a free CLE seminar entitled “The Top 3 FCPA Cases of 2010 – What Went Wrong, Red Flags and Lessons Learned!” Actually looks really interesting, and if I wasn’t booked already in the morning, I would attend. Here are the details:
September 30, 2010
Registration: 8:00
Program Starts: 8:30-10:00 AMHyatt Regency (SFO Airport)
1333 Bayshore Highway
Burlingame, CA 94010
The speakers are Tom Fox, author of the FCPA Compliance & Ethics Blog and Stephen Martin, General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer at Corpedia. They will be discussing the cases against Avon and Hewlett-Packard, and the massive DOJ undercover FCPA sting case, looking at the following issues:
1) The top three cases of 2010: what went wrong, red flags and lessons learned
2) The costs of a compliance breakdown
3) Best practices for establishing and maintaining an effective FCPA compliance program
Registration is here. The only catch is you need to sign up by 9/24!
a new month, a new firm in HK.
Posted on | August 2, 2010 | 1 Comment
This time, its Gibson Dunn making a move to open a new office in Hong Kong. According to the firm, it’s their second Asia office, alongside Singapore. Should be an interesting experiment as they are taking not only a general corporate focus, but a compliance aspect in hiring an FCPA expert to anchor this office.
From the horse’s mouth first:
The new Hong Kong office will focus on corporate transactions and corporate compliance, regulation and investigations. The office will be anchored by Kelly Austin, who joins the firm as a partner, after eight years in Hong Kong with General Electric International, where she advised on Asia-wide Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and other compliance matters across GE’s Asian business units. Gibson Dunn partner Joseph Barbeau, who previously practiced in Hong Kong from 1985 to 1997, is relocating to Hong Kong from the firm’s Palo Alto office. Also joining them is associate Kate Yin, who is relocating from the Los Angeles office.
“Gibson Dunn has been expanding our global platform where our clients need us, recently in Dubai in 2007, Singapore in 2008 and São Paulo in 2009,” said Ken Doran, Chair and Managing Partner of Gibson Dunn. “We have been looking for the right opportunity in Hong Kong for some time, and the opportunity to bring Kelly on board was key to our decision.”
review of poorly made in china – finally!
Posted on | July 15, 2010 | No Comments
Almost
one year ago, I received my copy of
Paul Midler’s book
Poorly Made in China: An Insider’s Account of the Tactics Behind China’s Production Game. I promised to do a review during paternity leave. Obviously that did not happen. However, in the plane a month ago, I actually had a chance to finish this book. And inspired by Imagethief
Sinica 13 post recently, I was inspired to finally write my review.
As many of you know, this book talks about the problem of quality fade. (For those of you who don’t know, quality fade refers to when a factory starts out producing high quality products and then later turns out inferior products by cutting corners to save costs) Paul shares his personal anecdotes of working with a Chinese factory making health and beauty (soap and shampoo) products, as well as run-ins at trade fairs and the experiences with other factories. Most of the book, however, focuses upon his representation of an American company sourcing their soap manufacture to a single factory in Southern China.
keep looking »
Twitter Feed
- Social media policies not useful and often not connected to reality per Ron Johnstone at #Yahoo (#ACC-SFBA luncheon) @chinaesq
- #WSJ comes out for #SOPA arguing that copyright violations are not like the 1990s. Editorial is out of touch with reality. @chinaesq
- Join me & change your profile picture to protest SOPA: http://t.co/ODeZTBng #BlackoutSOPA @chinaesq
- New blog post: Merry Christmas and Happy New Year (http://t.co/D6XrgXzz) http://t.co/D6XrgXzz @chinaesq
- Happy New Year everyone! Looking forward to #2012. @chinaesq
- Won a #Amazon #Kindle Fire at the ACC SFBA event!!! Thank you Essential Discovery! @chinaesq
- Social media contracts session helpful. Lots of trends toward plain English TOUs. @chinaesq
