Columbia Law School (LexBlog China)

On February 28, 2024, President Biden announced an Executive Order (“EO”) directing the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) to promulgate regulations that restrict or prohibit transactions involving certain bulk sensitive personal data or United States Government-related data and countries of concern or covered persons. The DOJ’s initially identified countries are China (including Hong Kong and Macau),.

In the U.S., when lawyers or businesspeople weigh the potential risks of a contract breach or a disputed invoice, the possibility of being taken hostage or denied exit from the country is not a consideration. And for good reason, as neither possibility is legal or customary in the U.S., or, for that matter, in most...

In the past few years, the economies of developing countries and emerging markets have been upended by the once-in-a-century COVID-19 pandemic and the fallout from the war in Ukraine.  As a result, these economies have suffered from a array of major economic problems, including skyrocketing inflation, sharply reduced growth levels (apart from a strong rebound...

Content generated by artificial intelligence (“AI”) continues to improve and become more convincing.  These realistic images, audio, and videos, where used for purposes of a misrepresentation or to falsely spread information, are commonly dubbed “deepfakes.”  Governments around the world are taking notice of deepfakes and beginning to respond.  As reported by the Wall Street Journal, China’s...

In a new article. I investigate how two financial markets of trillions of dollars each have developed extralegally in the past two decades, creating risks of regulatory enforcement actions and contract defaults. More specifically, I examine (1) how Chinese internet companies from Sina to Alibaba have adopted the structure of a variable interest entity (“VIE”)...

Securities class actions (SCA) are an important governance mechanism in the U.S. securities market, but there is a significant debate about their costs and benefits to investors. SCA are intended to serve two key functions in investor protection: disciplining and deterring fraud and compensating aggrieved investors. On the one hand, SCA are more efficient and...

According to the Financial Stability Board (FSB), there is a consensus among major economies, such as the G20, to enhance cross-border payments.[1] Providing faster, cheaper, and more transparent and inclusive cross-border payment services would be beneficial for citizens, businesses, and national economies. As the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) noted, the Covid-19 pandemic made global..

According to the Financial Stability Board (FSB), there is a consensus among major economies, such as the G20, to enhance cross-border payments.[1] Providing faster, cheaper, and more transparent and inclusive cross-border payment services would be beneficial for citizens, businesses, and national economies. As the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) noted, the Covid-19 pandemic made global..

The Intermediate People’s Court of Guangzhou delivered a groundbreaking victory to investors in China’s first-ever shareholder class action. The China Securities Investor Service Centre (CSISC), a government-affiliated body, represented investors as it brought the action against Kangmei Pharmaceutical Co. (In China, class actions can only be initiated by government bodies – different from the U.S.

The Federal Reserve is set to release a much anticipated discussion paper on the prospect of a digital U.S. dollar. According to the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), over 86 percent of central banks are investigating the possibility of a digital currency.[1] Although China began a trial for its digital yuan in four cities in...

The PRC appears to be further tightening controls on cryptocurrency activities.  On September 24, 2021, the People’s Bank of China (PBoC), China’s central bank, issued the Notice Regarding Further Prevention and Management of Risks Associated with Cryptocurrency Trading Hype (September 2021 Notice) jointly with nine other Chinese national government bodies[1]. The September 2021 Notice prohibits..

The extraordinary rise of China’s economy has made understanding Chinese corporate governance an issue of global importance. A rich literature has developed analyzing the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) role as China’s largest controlling shareholder and the impact that this has on Chinese corporate governance. However, the CCP’s role as the architect – and direct and...

Global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions decreased by 6.4% in 2020, largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While encouraging at first glance, many climate change experts have pointed out that this result will have hardly any long-term effect on curbing climate change. The link between economic activity and emissions is hard to ignore. As was noted...

When governments fail to respond quickly and effectively to a crisis, can companies help address the issue? In a recent article, we explore an important mechanism through which firms can do so as corporate citizens: information transmission within organizations. Specifically, we study whether U.S. firms’ business networks with China and Italy, including trade, executive, and...

Throughout December 2020, the Trump administration continued its focus on China and Russia and imposed additional export and investment controls. On December 23, 2020, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) published a final rule to amend the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) and create a new Military End User List (MEU...

The SEC Division of Corporation Finance has provided its views regarding certain disclosure considerations for companies based in or with the majority of their operations in the People’s Republic of China. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recognizes the increased exposure of US investors to companies based in or with the majority of their...

In the weeks leading up to Ant Financial’s ill-fated IPO, Jack Ma criticized the system of international banking regulation in remarks at the Bund Summit in Shanghai. The Alibaba co-founder contended that the current framework was a poor match for countries like China that needed to innovate in the creation and delivery of financial services....

The forced postponement of Ant Group’s initial public offering (IPO), the largest ever, by the Chinese government is the latest example of the heavy-handed regulatory approach that has made it extremely costly for companies to go public in China. The high opportunity cost of going public on the Shenzhen or Shanghai stock exchanges, where the...

On April 2, China’s Luckin Coffee announced that some of its employees, including the chief operating officer, had fabricated over $300 million in reported revenues. On April 21, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board alerted investors that firms based in “emerging markets, including China,” often do not satisfy...

Three catalysts are causing a fundamental reorientation of domestic and international monetary and payment systems: Facebook’s Libra, China’s central bank digital currency (the Digital Currency / Electronic Payment (DCEP) system), and the COVID-19 pandemic. These catalysts stand in stark contrast to all previous disruptions and are the focus of our new paper. First, and crucially,...

On March 11, 2020, the Chinese government announced that the novel coronavirus epidemic had peaked within the country, with the number of new cases falling significantly. By March 16, for the first time since the coronavirus was first identified last year, there were more reported cases outside of China than inside. Although the situation appears...

If stocks were still traded in pits, stock exchanges would have been shut down in China, Korea, Italy and possibly elsewhere a while ago. A bunch of men shouting and feverishly passing each other sheets of papers would have spread coronavirus faster than the now infamous Korean sect. But stock exchange trading was automated everywhere...

The recent outbreak of novel coronavirus (also known as COVID-19) has had devastating effects since the first cases were reported in the city of Wuhan in China on 23 January 2020. As of 19 February there have been 75,285 reported cases of the virus, spanning 26 countries and resulting in 2,009 deaths.[1] On 30 January,...

In November 2019, we met with senior representatives of the four largest U.S. audit firms, including certain of their network representatives, to discuss audit quality across their global networks and certain of the challenges faced in auditing public companies with operations in emerging markets, including China.  Those November 2019 meetings, which were discussed in a...

Last year marked the eleventh anniversary of China’s Anti-Monopoly Law (the “AML”).  In 2019, China announced the first-ever set of proposed amendments to the AML as well as the introduction of several new regulations aimed at more transparency and efficiency in antitrust enforcement and codifying noteworthy deviations between Chinese and United States and European Union...

In early 2019, the government of Hong Kong proposed a bill that would allow for the transfer of criminal suspects to jurisdictions with which it does not have an extradition agreement, including Mainland China. The proposed extradition bill triggered an intense public backlash as opponents believed the bill would expose Hong Kong to China’s legal...

Cryptocurrencies like Ether, DAO, Bitcoin and Facebook’s Libra are electronically generated and stored currencies by which users can trade real or virtual objects with one another, bypassing traditional central clearinghouses. Given that these cryptocurrencies are starting to replace some national currencies and financial products, should they be regulated? And, if so, how? Some countries, such...

Fifty years ago, banking was a relationship business. Bank managers collected information about depositors and borrowers from all sorts of sources, formal and informal. In recent decades, credit decisions have become far more data-driven, with companies like Amazon and the Alibaba-affiliate, Ant Financial, taking the lead in the U.S. and China. This paradigm shift in...