Larry Zhou & Abby Wang Successfully Represented a Shenzhen FIE in an Employment Dispute

Representing a Shenzhen foreign-invested enterprise successfully in an employment dispute due to the COVID epidemic.

Our client is a foreign-invested enterprise in Shenzhen. Because of its unfamiliarity with the laws and regulations about employment in China and of its headquarters’ shutdown due to the COVID epidemic, our client has not entered into labor contracts with its employees insides China in a timely manner.

Some of our client’s employees filed arbitration on the basis of the enterprise’s failure to conclude the labor contract, alleging our client’s subsidiaries and branches in China pay double wages during the period when the employees have already worked but their labor contracts have not been concluded.

According to Article 82 of Labor Contract Law of the People's Republic of China (2012 Amendment), if an employer fails to conclude a written labor contract with an employee after one month but less than one year as of the date when the employee began working, the employer shall pay to the employee his monthly wages at double amount. Therefore, arbitrators would have likely supported the employees’ claims.

However, through our lawyers’ numerous negotiations with the arbitrators, the employees and the employee’s lawyers, our law firm have fully and clearly expressed our client’s difficulty and its reasons for why it has not concluded the labor contract timely. We have also proposed a variety of plans for settlement, showing our client’s good attitude.

Finally, based on our active communication and negotiation, the employees consented to accept the settlement offered by us. The final amount for this settlement only represented 30% of the amount which the employees originally requested in arbitration. Our client was very satisfied with this settlement and appreciated a lot our work.