中國(guó)成國(guó)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(guó)公司已經(jīng)習(xí)慣于在美國(guó)或歐盟法院打漫長(zhǎng)而艱難的法律戰(zhàn)，而且這些官司通常會(huì)帶來(lái)全球后果。如今，它們應(yīng)該為新出現(xiàn)的第三個(gè)戰(zhàn)場(chǎng)做好準(zhǔn)備——中國(guó)。兩周前，名不見(jiàn)經(jīng)傳的加拿大公司W(wǎng)ilan Inc在中國(guó)東部南京市對(duì)索尼(Sony)提起訴訟，指控這家日本集團(tuán)的LTE標(biāo)準(zhǔn)智能手機(jī)使用的技術(shù)涉嫌專利侵權(quán)。

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(píng)者口中的“專利流氓”——利用知識(shí)產(chǎn)權(quán)向其他公司收取費(fèi)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(jī)?？紤]到中國(guó)在全球制造業(yè)幾乎所有鏈條中的關(guān)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(shè)想一起可能帶來(lái)相同后果的類似訴訟，只是將被告換成蘋(píng)果(Apple)或三星(Samsung)。這將對(duì)消費(fèi)者造成巨大沖擊。企業(yè)將面臨一個(gè)新時(shí)代，在這個(gè)時(shí)代，一名中國(guó)法官就能夠切斷一些全球最具價(jià)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(guó)的法律體系還未進(jìn)入多數(shù)跨國(guó)公司的風(fēng)險(xiǎn)計(jì)算。在與中方伙伴簽訂合同時(shí)，外國(guó)公司傾向于堅(jiān)持在海外(包括香港)對(duì)爭(zhēng)端進(jìn)行仲裁。鑒于中國(guó)內(nèi)地執(zhí)行判決的難度，它們希望永遠(yuǎn)不要有爭(zhēng)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(shuō)，這種情況發(fā)生變化始于2013年8月。那時(shí)，中國(guó)國(guó)家發(fā)展和改革委員會(huì)對(duì)6家嬰兒配方奶粉制造商(其中5家為外國(guó)公司)開(kāi)出了逾1億美元的罰單，對(duì)于中國(guó)出臺(tái)時(shí)間不長(zhǎng)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(jiǎn)短聲明中宣布了該決定，聲明對(duì)支撐其調(diào)查結(jié)果的理由語(yǔ)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(rèn)違法，不會(huì)對(duì)罰款提出異議。這份聲明強(qiáng)化了這樣一種印象：在作為司法管轄區(qū)的中國(guó)，這樣的決定隨心所欲，且無(wú)法進(jìn)行可靠的法律上訴。然而，就在同一個(gè)月，上海一起不那么引人注意的案件凸顯了中國(guó)法律體系的飛快發(fā)展，意味著中國(guó)成為處理企業(yè)糾紛的一個(gè)嚴(yán)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(guó)被告方再次輸?shù)袅嗽V訟。上海高級(jí)人民法院判決，強(qiáng)生(Johnson & Johnson)的醫(yī)療設(shè)備公司對(duì)當(dāng)?shù)亟?jīng)銷商“限制最低轉(zhuǎn)售價(jià)格”，此舉違反了中國(guó)反壟斷法。但是，該法院也公布了篇幅較長(zhǎng)的判決書(shū)，詳細(xì)解釋了作出該判決的原因。如此一來(lái)，它推翻了下級(jí)法院作出的同樣詳細(xì)、但有利于強(qiáng)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(chǎng)法律拉鋸戰(zhàn)，與美國(guó)或歐盟案件的判決結(jié)果一樣意義重大。它很快受到該領(lǐng)域法律專家同樣密集的分析。它也不是外國(guó)原告在中國(guó)的法院判決中結(jié)果變成被告這樣簡(jiǎn)單的事情。盡管強(qiáng)生輸?shù)袅斯偎?，但它只被判決向原告支付53萬(wàn)元人民幣(合7.73萬(wàn)美元)的賠償，與原告索賠的1440萬(wàn)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(qiáng)生案審判的方式也暗示了Wilan可能的誤算，后者針對(duì)索尼提起訴訟的城市正是二戰(zhàn)時(shí)日本在華犯下最嚴(yán)重的戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)罪行——南京大屠殺——的地方。“有人會(huì)說(shuō)此舉很聰明，但如果擁有良好聲譽(yù)的南京法院努力公正對(duì)待索尼，我也不會(huì)感到意外，”常駐香港的知識(shí)產(chǎn)權(quán)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(duì)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(guó)企業(yè)，才敢在中國(guó)共產(chǎn)黨控制的法院系統(tǒng)中挑戰(zhàn)政府監(jiān)管部門(mén)、并且期望贏得訴訟。但是，當(dāng)涉及公司訴訟時(shí)，Wilan和強(qiáng)生案表明，中國(guó)是一個(gè)越來(lái)越重要的司法管轄區(qū)，而跨國(guó)企業(yè)危險(xiǎn)地忽視了這點(diǎn)。