"The impact of the draft interpretation depends upon the corporate form and ownership structure of a company. It does not appear that the draft would apply to a China-registered partnership, including a foreign-invested partnership, a non-legal person Sino-foreign cooperative joint venture or the shareholders of an offshore vehicle that holds a wholly foreign-owned enterprise. In addition, the impact would differ depending upon whether a shareholder holds a minority or majority stake. In particular, the provisions regarding the shareholders' right to know and right to profit distribution would largely protect minority shareholders in practice. It is worth noting that the draft appears to provide more freedom to the shareholders of a LLC and a company limited by shares to reach their own agreement in the articles of associate of a company, especially those regarding pre-emptive rights while the Company Law only provides certain principles."

"In and of itself, the draft negative list for market access is not tremendously ground-breaking, since it largely consolidates existing restrictions found in various regulations specific to different industries. Where the unveiling of the draft list becomes interesting is as part of the Chinese government’s broader project, as reflected in the draft Foreign Investment Law, to implement a negative list approach to the regulation of foreign investment. The balance of this year should see significant developments, including release of a draft negative list for foreign investment, which is required before the Foreign Investment Law can be promulgated, as well as negotiation of China's proposed bilateral investment treaty with the United States."

"Any enterprise that engages in major outbound investments would prefer the proposed revision, as a "receipt" from NDRC is supposed to be more easily attainable than the "confirmation letter" as currently required. In addition, the proposed revision is investor-friendly as it exempts a potential investor of an investment that is subject to NDRC's verification from submitting a letter from a bank regarding its intention of financing."

"While this new law provides many facilitating policies to charitable organizations, some parts of the law need further clarification. For example, it does not provide a clear definition of charitable organizations and what types of existing non-profit organizations will fall within the scope of charitable organizations. It may take some time and additional work for the new policies in the law to be actually implemented."

"The spirit of various important provisions, for example on claim construction, has been adopted, partially or fully, by different local courts in judicial practice. Clarifications on such issues are welcomed, along with details on the handling of parallel patent invalidation proceedings and civil patent infringement actions. The fact that courts can now reject a patent infringement claim once a patent has been invalided by the Patent Review Board (without taking note of further appeals) underscores the importance of assessing invalidation risks before initiating patent enforcement actions in China. Also worth noting are provisions relating to the issuance of permanent injunction vs. royalty payments and the court's possible intervention on patent licensing terms for standard essential patents. Last but not least, administrative enforcement of patents has been a key focus in recent proposed legislative changes in China. However, in view of the perceived prevalence of junk patents (i.e., design and utility model patents granted without substantive examination), it remains to be seen whether increased administrative enforcement will benefit patentees seeking genuine enforcement or be taken advantage of by patent trolls or other ill-willed third parties."

"While this development has been viewed in part as a crackdown on the grey market for imported consumer goods from websites outside of China, it is also a first step in what we expect will be a broader effort in the coming years to tax cross-border B2C e-commerce, encompassing not only physical goods but also the online supply of digital goods and services, and including income tax as well as turnover taxes such as VAT."

"Mobile e-commerce as well as cross-border e-commerce platforms like Tmall Global are among the fastest growing parts of China's e-commerce sector. These draft standards represent a significant effort by MOFCOM to define best practices. Not only should they be of interest to online sellers and marketplace operators in China, the draft standards governing cross-border ecommerce are of interest to international brands selling into China via e-commerce platforms such as Tmall Global."