中國成國際企業(yè)案件重要訴訟地

Multinational companies are accustomed to fighting epic legal battles against each other in US or EU courts, often with global consequences. They should brace themselves for the opening of a third front — in China. Two weeks ago a little-known Canadian company, Wilan Inc, sued Sony in the eastern Chinese city of Nanjing for alleged patent infringement involving technologies used in the Japanese group’s LTE-standard smartphones.

跨國公司已經(jīng)習慣于在美國或歐盟法院打漫長而艱難的法律戰(zhàn)，而且這些官司通常會帶來全球后果。如今，它們應該為新出現(xiàn)的第三個戰(zhàn)場做好準備——中國。兩周前，名不見經(jīng)傳的加拿大公司W(wǎng)ilan Inc在中國東部南京市對索尼(Sony)提起訴訟，指控這家日本集團的LTE標準智能手機使用的技術涉嫌專利侵權。

Wilan is what critics call a “patent troll”, a company that collects payments from other companies on its intellectual property but produces little if anything itself. If Wilan wins, Sony could be barred from selling and exporting its LTE handsets as early as next summer. The potential ban on exports is the real threat, given China’s pivotal role in almost all global manufacturing chains.

Wilan正是批評者口中的“專利流氓”——利用知識產(chǎn)權向其他公司收取費用而自己不從事生產(chǎn)的公司。如果Wilan獲勝，索尼可能最早在明年夏天被禁止銷售和出口其LTE手機?？紤]到中國在全球制造業(yè)幾乎所有鏈條中的關鍵作用，潛在的出口禁令將是索尼面臨的真正威脅。

Imagine a similar suit with the same potential consequences, only with an Apple or a Samsung cast as the defendant. The impact on consumers would be enormous. A new corporate era beckons in which a Chinese judge could conceivably cut off the lifeblood of some of the world’s most valuable companies.

設想一起可能帶來相同后果的類似訴訟，只是將被告換成蘋果(Apple)或三星(Samsung)。這將對消費者造成巨大沖擊。企業(yè)將面臨一個新時代，在這個時代，一名中國法官就能夠切斷一些全球最具價值公司的命脈。

It was not so long ago that China’s legal system just did not factor into the risk calculus of most global companies. When entering into contracts with Chinese parties, foreign companies tended to insist that disputes be heard in overseas arbitration venues — including Hong Kong. Then they hoped that they never had cause to resort to arbitration given the difficulty of enforcing judgments back in China.

就在不久前，中國的法律體系還未進入多數(shù)跨國公司的風險計算。在與中方伙伴簽訂合同時，外國公司傾向于堅持在海外(包括香港)對爭端進行仲裁。鑒于中國內(nèi)地執(zhí)行判決的難度，它們希望永遠不要有爭端訴諸仲裁。

August 2013 is arguably when this began to change. That was when the National Development and Reform Commission fined six baby formula manufacturers — five of them foreign — more than $100m in a landmark enforcement of China’s young anti-monopoly law.

可以說，這種情況發(fā)生變化始于2013年8月。那時，中國國家發(fā)展和改革委員會對6家嬰兒配方奶粉制造商(其中5家為外國公司)開出了逾1億美元的罰單，對于中國出臺時間不長的《反壟斷法》，這是一次具有里程碑意義的執(zhí)法。

The NDRC announced its decision in a terse statement that shed little light on the reasons underpinning its findings. It basically said the six companies were guilty of various infractions, had confessed their guilt and would not contest the fines. The announcement reinforced the impression of China as a jurisdiction where such decisions were capricious — and credible legal appeals not an option. In that same month, however, a much lower profile case in Shanghai highlighted how quickly China’s legal system was evolving, making it a much more serious jurisdiction for dealing with corporate disputes.

發(fā)改委在一份簡短聲明中宣布了該決定，聲明對支撐其調查結果的理由語焉不詳。聲明籠統(tǒng)地表示，這6家公司犯有多種違法行為，已經(jīng)承認違法，不會對罰款提出異議。這份聲明強化了這樣一種印象：在作為司法管轄區(qū)的中國，這樣的決定隨心所欲，且無法進行可靠的法律上訴。然而，就在同一個月，上海一起不那么引人注意的案件凸顯了中國法律體系的飛快發(fā)展，意味著中國成為處理企業(yè)糾紛的一個嚴肅得多的司法管轄區(qū)。

Once again the foreign defendant lost. The Shanghai High Court ruled that Johnson & Johnson’s medical devices arm had, in contravention of China’s anti-monopoly law, set a “minimum retail price” for its local distributors. But the court also issued a voluminous ruling detailing the reasons for its verdict. In doing so, it overruled a similarly detailed lower-court ruling in favour of the US company.

在這起案件中，外國被告方再次輸?shù)袅嗽V訟。上海高級人民法院判決，強生(Johnson & Johnson)的醫(yī)療設備公司對當?shù)亟?jīng)銷商“限制最低轉售價格”，此舉違反了中國反壟斷法。但是，該法院也公布了篇幅較長的判決書，詳細解釋了作出該判決的原因。如此一來，它推翻了下級法院作出的同樣詳細、但有利于強生的判決。

The legal back-and-forth was as substantive as any coming out of a US or EU case. It quickly became fodder for equally dense analyses by lawyers expert in the field. Nor was it a simple matter of a foreign plaintiff ending up on the wrong side of a Chinese court judgment. While J&J lost, it was ordered to pay only a fraction of the damages sought — Rmb530,000 ($77,300) against a claim of Rmb14.4m.

這場法律拉鋸戰(zhàn)，與美國或歐盟案件的判決結果一樣意義重大。它很快受到該領域法律專家同樣密集的分析。它也不是外國原告在中國的法院判決中結果變成被告這樣簡單的事情。盡管強生輸?shù)袅斯偎?，但它只被判決向原告支付53萬元人民幣(合7.73萬美元)的賠償，與原告索賠的1440萬元人民幣相比只是很小的金額。

The manner in which the J&J case was adjudicated also hints at a potential miscalculation by Wilan, which filed its suit against Sony in the city that was the scene of the worst Japanese war crime in China during the second world war — the Rape of Nanking. “Some would say that’s clever but I wouldn’t be surprised if the Nanjing courts, which have a good reputation, bend over backwards to be nice to Sony,” says Joe Simone, a Hong Kong-based intellectual property rights specialist. “They don’t want to be seen as a place to go and spear Japanese companies.”

強生案審判的方式也暗示了Wilan可能的誤算，后者針對索尼提起訴訟的城市正是二戰(zhàn)時日本在華犯下最嚴重的戰(zhàn)爭罪行——南京大屠殺——的地方。“有人會說此舉很聰明，但如果擁有良好聲譽的南京法院努力公正對待索尼，我也不會感到意外，”常駐香港的知識產(chǎn)權專家喬•西莫內(nèi)(Joe Simone)表示，“他們不想被視為人們可以去攻擊日本企業(yè)的地方。”

The NDRC baby formula ruling remains instructive. It would be a foolish multinational that dared to take on a Chinese government regulator in the country’s Communist party-controlled court system and expect to win. But when it comes to corporate litigation, the Wilan and J&J cases show that China is an increasingly important jurisdiction that multinationals ignore at their peril.

發(fā)改委對嬰兒配方奶粉案的裁決仍然具有啟發(fā)性。只有愚蠢的跨國企業(yè)，才敢在中國共產(chǎn)黨控制的法院系統(tǒng)中挑戰(zhàn)政府監(jiān)管部門、并且期望贏得訴訟。但是，當涉及公司訴訟時，Wilan和強生案表明，中國是一個越來越重要的司法管轄區(qū)，而跨國企業(yè)危險地忽視了這點。