Negotiating China Contracts: It’s Tough Out There

(Before It's News)

Despite all that you may have read about China’s economy being on the downswing and despite all that you may have read about China factories closing, our China lawyers are starting to see distinctly tougher negotiating by China factories. We attribute this to the following:

1. To greatly simplify, ten years ago China factories made socks and rubber duckies and with thousands of factories capable of making these things competition was incredibly intense. On top of this, price was oftentimes the foreign buyer’s only real concern. Today, China factories are making incredibly complicated products and oftentimes few or sometimes only one China factory has the capability to make the exact product the foreign buyer wants. Sometimes a China factory even holds a patent for some aspect of the product and so that factory is the only factory that can produce the product with that one aspect. Needless to say, being unique or nearly unique increases pricing power.
2. To again greatly simplify, ten years ago, there were a number of China factories that knew little to nothing about pricing. It would not be an exaggeration to say that our China lawyers oftentimes dealt with China factories that did not even know their costs, leading us to often joke that they would make up for their selling widgets at a dollar under their costs by selling massive quantities of widgets. Most of those factories either wised up or no longer exist.
3. Read all you like about factories closing in China, but recognize that there are plenty of profitable China factories these days with very good long term relationships with good stable foreign buyers. Those China factories are in no rush to take on your production on bad terms.

So what we are seeing now is a power shift, with Chinese factories more and more often gaining the upper hand. In subtle ways, this is making our job as China lawyers more difficult, while increasing legal fees for our clients. In the old days, our typical scenario would be that we would draft a manufacturing agreement (a/k/a OEM or ODM contract), send it to the Chinese company and get it back signed within 24 hours. Nowadays, it is far more common for us to receive pushback from the Chinese company on terms, including on terms to which the Chinese company previously agreed with our client. Needless to say, one of the more common push-backs is on price, with the Chinese factory oftentimes saying something like, we quoted $5 per widget with the understanding that we would have 90 days to produce after receiving the PO and now you are asking for 45 days (even though the email trail reveals that our client had made clear it was 45 days all along).

We are also seeing increased toughness even in the pre-quoting stage from China companies. About a month ago, I received an email from a foreign buyer telling me that a potential supplier was saying that it would sign an NNN Agreement with the foreign buyer agreeing not to use any secret information provided by the foreign buyer to compete with the foreign buyer, but if the foreign buyer ended up using another supplier to make its widgets, it would not be bound by the NNN Agreement. In other words, it would be free to use the foreign buyer’s top secret information to compete with it. The foreign buyer asked if something like this would work, to which I replied as follows:

No, this will not work. Not at all. This could be terrible for you. Imagine this scenario. Imagine you get quotes from five other good manufacturers ranging from $5 per widget to $7 per widget, but this one Chinese company is quoting you at $12 per widget. Do you pay the obviously inflated $12 per widget price, because if you do not, that Chinese company can (and likely will, otherwise why is it’s price quote so out of line with everyone else’s) will start making your widgets and competing directly with you. So you can see why this is not acceptable. We have actually never heard of a Chinese company making this sort of proposal so you should not face this situation with any other potential suppliers.

But then yesterday, one of our China lawyers got a similar email from a foreign buyer asking us essentially the same question. I discussed all of this with co-blogger Steve Dickinson and his response was “that’s what’s so cool about Chinese companies. They tell you what they are going to do. These two Chinese companies are saying if you don’t choose us we will steal your product. The choice is up to you. It’s up to our clients to listen”

I guess that is true. To which I can only ask whether you our readers agree that doing business in China and with China is only getting tougher.

For more on China manufacturing pricing, check out China Manufacturing Agreements: Binding Contract or Contract Terms.

We will be discussing the practical aspects of Chinese law and how it impacts business there. We will be telling you what works and what does not and what you as a businessperson can do to use the law to your advantage. Our aim is to assist businesses already in China or planning to go into China, not to break new ground in legal theory or policy.

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