The Finest Option to Ship a Draft Contract to Your China Counterparty

The opposite day I cleaned up and revised the varied e-mail templates our China legal professionals typically use to reply incessantly requested questions despatched to us by our purchasers and potential purchasers. One of many widespread questions we get from purchasers is on the best way to ship to the Chinese language facet of a deal the contracts our legal professionals have drafted.

Our customary reply is the next:

It’s normally finest so that you can ship a draft contract to the Chinese language facet as an already signed PDF. You obtain two targets by doing it this manner. First off, the Chinese language facet can not simply modify this with out you seeing the modifications they’ve made. It’s not uncommon for Chinese language firms to signal and return your signed Phrase doc as if they didn’t make any modifications once they really did. Utilizing a PDF makes this much less doubtless.

Second, sending the contract this manner primarily tells them, “please execute this with none modifications so we are able to transfer ahead rapidly.” Should you ship them a Phrase doc you might be all however inviting them to make modifications to it.

I notice although that in the previous few years it has change into customary to make use of a Phrase doc for China contracts as a result of Chinese language firms have began to make lots of modifications to their contracts. That is really factor as a result of it means they now take their contracts critically and that in flip means they notice Chinese language courts have gotten higher at implementing them. This implies they don’t sometimes signal a contract planning to breach it.

So the present finest technique is for you is to ship them a signed PDF. Then, in the event that they ask for it in Phrase format you possibly can and may ship them that. Simply don’t ship the Phrase doc till they ask for it!

Your ideas?