中国成国际企业案件重要诉讼地

Multinational companies are accustomed to fighting epic legal battles against each other in US or EU courts, often with global consequences.

跨国公司已经习惯于在美国或欧盟法院打漫长而艰难的法律战，而且这些官司通常会带来全球后果。

They should brace themselves for the opening of a third front — in China.

如今，它们应该为新出现的第三个战场做好准备——中国。

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.

两周前，名不见经传的加拿大公司Wilan Inc在中国东部南京市对索尼(Sony)提起诉讼，指控这家日本集团的LTE标准智能手机使用的技术涉嫌专利侵权。

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.

Wilan正是批评者口中的专利流氓——利用知识产权向其他公司收取费用而自己不从事生产的公司。

If Wilan wins, Sony could be barred from selling and exporting its LTE handsets as early as next summer.

如果Wilan获胜，索尼可能最早在明年夏天被禁止销售和出口其LTE手机。

The potential ban on exports is the real threat, given China’s pivotal role in almost all global manufacturing chains.

考虑到中国在全球制造业几乎所有链条中的关键作用，潜在的出口禁令将是索尼面临的真正威胁。

Imagine a similar suit with the same potential consequences, only with an Apple or a Samsung cast as the defendant.

设想一起可能带来相同后果的类似诉讼，只是将被告换成苹果(Apple)或三星(Samsung)。

The impact on consumers would be enormous.

这将对消费者造成巨大冲击。

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.

企业将面临一个新时代，在这个时代，一名中国法官就能够切断一些全球最具价值公司的命脉。

It was not so long ago that China’s legal system just did not factor into the risk calculus of most global companies.

就在不久前，中国的法律体系还未进入多数跨国公司的风险计算。

When entering into contracts with Chinese parties, foreign companies tended to insist that disputes be heard in overseas arbitration venues — including Hong Kong.

在与中方伙伴签订合同时，外国公司倾向于坚持在海外（包括香港）对争端进行仲裁。

Then they hoped that they never had cause to resort to arbitration given the difficulty of enforcing judgments back in China.

鉴于中国内地执行判决的难度，它们希望永远不要有争端诉诸仲裁。

August 2013 is arguably when this began to change.

可以说，这种情况发生变化始于2013年8月。

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.

那时，中国国家发展和改革委员会对6家婴儿配方奶粉制造商（其中5家为外国公司）开出了逾1亿美元的罚单，对于中国出台时间不长的《反垄断法》，这是一次具有里程碑意义的执法。

The NDRC announced its decision in a terse statement that shed little light on the reasons underpinning its findings.

发改委在一份简短声明中宣布了该决定，声明对支撑其调查结果的理由语焉不详。

It basically said the six companies were guilty of various infractions, had confessed their guilt and would not contest the fines.

声明笼统地表示，这6家公司犯有多种违法行为，已经承认违法，不会对罚款提出异议。

The announcement reinforced the impression of China as a jurisdiction where such decisions were capricious — and credible legal appeals not an option.

这份声明强化了这样一种印象：在作为司法管辖区的中国，这样的决定随心所欲，且无法进行可靠的法律上诉。

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.

然而，就在同一个月，上海一起不那么引人注意的案件凸显了中国法律体系的飞快发展，意味着中国成为处理企业纠纷的一个严肃得多的司法管辖区。

Once again the foreign defendant lost.

在这起案件中，外国被告方再次输掉了诉讼。

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.

上海高级人民法院判决，强生(Johnson & Johnson)的医疗设备公司对当地经销商限制最低转售价格，此举违反了中国反垄断法。

But the court also issued a voluminous ruling detailing the reasons for its verdict.

但是，该法院也公布了篇幅较长的判决书，详细解释了作出该判决的原因。

In doing so, it overruled a similarly detailed lower-court ruling in favour of the US company.

如此一来，它推翻了下级法院作出的同样详细、但有利于强生的判决。

The legal back-and-forth was as substantive as any coming out of a US or EU case.

这场法律拉锯战，与美国或欧盟案件的判决结果一样意义重大。

It quickly became fodder for equally dense analyses by lawyers expert in the field.

它很快受到该领域法律专家同样密集的分析。

Nor was it a simple matter of a foreign plaintiff ending up on the wrong side of a Chinese court judgment.

它也不是外国原告在中国的法院判决中结果变成被告这样简单的事情。

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.

尽管强生输掉了官司，但它只被判决向原告支付53万元人民币（合7.73万美元）的赔偿，与原告索赔的1440万元人民币相比只是很小的金额。

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.

强生案审判的方式也暗示了Wilan可能的误算，后者针对索尼提起诉讼的城市正是二战时日本在华犯下最严重的战争罪行——南京大屠杀——的地方。

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.

有人会说此举很聪明，但如果拥有良好声誉的南京法院努力公正对待索尼，我也不会感到意外，常驻香港的知识产权专家乔.西莫内(Joe Simone)表示:

They don’t want to be seen as a place to go and spear Japanese companies.

他们不想被视为人们可以去攻击日本企业的地方。

The NDRC baby formula ruling remains instructive.

发改委对婴儿配方奶粉案的裁决仍然具有启发性。

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.

只有愚蠢的跨国企业，才敢在中国共产党控制的法院系统中挑战政府监管部门、并且期望赢得诉讼。

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.

但是，当涉及公司诉讼时，Wilan和强生案表明，中国是一个越来越重要的司法管辖区，而跨国企业危险地忽视了这点。