Where to sue in China
01 June 2009
Selecting the right venue is a vital step when litigating in China. Peter Ollier explains why plaintiffs may benefit from considering courts beyond Beijing and Shanghai
Disbelief, anger, confusion. These would have been some of the emotions on display at the headquarters of French company Schneider Electric in 2007 when a court in Zhejiang province, situated south of Shanghai on China's east coast, ordered it to pay $46 million in damages for infringing a local company's utility model patent (The case was settled before an appeal judgment in April this year for $23 million.). In Korea, Samsung executives may still be scratching their heads after being slapped with an order to pay $7.3 million in damages for patent infringement by a court in the same province in December last year.
Although these awards far exceed average damages judgments in IP cases in China (which amounted to $15,000 during 2006 and 2007), they serve as a reminder that litigation for losing defendants in China can be very costly. Those costs will only increase as the country's...
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