I’m Michael, a Chinese lawyer. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.
This is a real case. I hope this case can help your trade and avoid unnecessary disputes. At the same time, I put forward some personal suggestions. I hope it will be helpful to you.
He learned about a merchant through an overseas platform. The two parties chatted in English and determined the transaction details on what’s app. The other party sent him a pure English payment information. The contract was not stamped by any company and the receiving bank was a Hong Kong account. There was only payment information in the contract, and there was no other agreement with the name of the device. After he paid, the merchant did not deliver the goods for various reasons for several months. After he told me the whole thing, more details about the company were found out, so you knew what would happen next.
Now let’s take a look at what needs to be paid attention to in the whole incident:
- Use whatsapp to communicate. Right now this software has not obtained a legal operating license in China, so if you want to use it as evidence for the court, it is hardly to be accepted.
- Pure English chat records, if the evidence you use is recognized, but you still need to translate the English into Chinese with certification. which requires additional time and money. It is better use WeChat to communicate.it is a very popular Chinese chat application. It has a function that automatically translates the language. When you finish speaking in English, you can choose to send it in translated Chinese.u can ask the merchant send u by Chinese, it can automatically translate it into English, so that the evidence retained can reduce a lot of unnecessary trouble in litigation.
- There is no official seal on the pure English contract. If someone sends you such a contract, please be more careful. Logically speaking, if it is a real trade, both parties to the contract should understand the details of the transaction and ensure each other’s rights and obligations. If there is only one side’s language, it is likely that he will either deceive you or his boss. Which is more likely? You can consider it.
- The contract is not stamped. In some countries, the contract can only take effect if it is signed by a legal person, but the seal is more legal in China. If only give you a contract information without a stamp, it almost means nothing.
- The collection account is a Hong Kong account. If the company complies with regulations.it can receive money from overseas directly . If you remit money to Hong Kong, there may be jurisdictional problems.
- The whole contract does not stipulate any delivery time, liability for breach of contract, delivery location, court of jurisdiction, and so on., all are very important.
- The company was established only 3 months before its transaction, and it did not even have an export license. Therefore, legally, he is not qualified to export, so you know, I can only regret what happened to him.
Now China is becoming more and more opening and inclusive. The government has formulated and optimized many policies to promote trade. There are also many excellent enterprises and high-quality products here. Welcome to China for tourism and trade.
An old saying I forgot who said it:Where there is trade, there are risks. If we can find professional people to do due diligence in advance, review contracts and so no, then we can avoid many risks.
Do things according to the process, so that we can stay away from risks as much as possible. I deeply believe that if we want to make money, the premise is that we don’t lose money. Welcome to travel and invest in China again.