Contents:

Business Sectors:

Smuggling crimes

Economic crimes

Foreign relations crimes

Intellectual property crimes

Criminal compliance and anti-fraud investigation

The Criminal Department of Shanghai Yingdong Law Firm has a highly specialized team of criminal defense lawyers who have handled a total of 1,000 criminal cases, with a focus on financial and economic crimes of securities and funds, smuggling crimes, and intellectual property crimes; in most of these cases, our clients were exempted from criminal sanctions, charges were dropped, cases were dismissed, or other favorable results were obtained for the clients. The team is expert at handling civil-criminal cases in civil and commercial activities, providing clients with all-round legal services and appropriate solutions, and assisting clients with corporate compliance review and thematic training focused on the criminal violation prevention in commercial activities.

Details:

Department Introduction:

Shanghai Yingdong Law Firm is the flagship firm of Winteam 500. With the support of Winteam 500, Shanghai Yingdong Law Firm has established a direct business cooperation relationship with nearly 200 member firms and over 2,000 lawyers over the country.

The Criminal Department is one of the first professional departments established by Shanghai Yingdong Law Firm, which is specialized in criminal cases. All members of the Department are practicing lawyers specialized in criminal cases, who have handled hundreds of criminal cases. The Criminal Department is focused on the defense segment and has developed a professional advantage in various fields such as smuggling crimes, securities crimes, duty-related crimes, intellectual property crimes, foreigner crimes and anti-commercial bribery investigation. The lawyers of the Department actively participate in social welfare activities, and has given a number of lectures or lessons for the Political and Legal Committee, Finance Office, Market Supervision Administration, Finance Bureau, Taxation Administration and other government authorities of Jing’an District, as well as for Tsinghua University, Jiaotong University, Zhejiang University Law School, and Shanghai University of Finance and Economics Law School.

Ever since a long time ago, the Department has been focused on the prevention of criminal legal risks for companies and entrepreneurs. So far, it has sorted out the criminal legal risks in many aspects such as duty-related crimes of business executives, commercial bribery investigation, illegal fund raising and trade secret protection for ZTE Corporation, Tianjin Equity Exchange, Noah Wealth, Kuai Taxi and many other well-known enterprises and institutions to protect them from criminal disputes.

Business Sectors:

Intellectual property crimes: crime of counterfeiting registered trademarks; crime of selling goods infringing intellectual property rights with counterfeited registered trademarks; crime of illegally manufacturing or selling illegally manufactured registered trademark logos; crime of copyright infringement; crime of selling infringing duplicate works; crime of counterfeiting patents; and crime of trade secret infringement under the Criminal Law.

Duty-related crimes: The acts whereby any functionaries of state organs, state-owned companies, enterprises, public institutions or people’s organizations use their powers to commit corruption, bribery, malpractice for personal gains, abuse of power or dereliction of duty, infringe upon personal rights of citizens or democratic rights, or undermine state rules and regulations on official activities, which shall be subject to criminal sanctions in accordance with the Criminal Law, including the “crime of corruption and bribery”, the “crime of malfeasance” and the crimes that any state functionaries use their powers to infringe upon personal rights of citizens or democratic rights as prescribed in the Criminal Law.

Smuggling crimes: The acts whereby any individuals or entities intentionally violate the customs regulations to evade customs supervision and control and transport contraband goods for import or export or evade customs duties by various means, specifically including: crime of arms smuggling; crime of smuggling nuclear materials; crime of smuggling counterfeit currency; crime of smuggling cultural artifacts; crime of smuggling precious metals; crime of smuggling precious animals and precious animal products; crime of smuggling rare plants and rare plant products; crime of smuggling obscene goods; crime of smuggling ordinary goods and items; and crime of smuggling wastes.

Economic crimes: The acts whereby any persons or entities violate the state law and seriously undermine the state management system and disrupt the social economic order   in the field of commodity economy to seek unlawful benefits, which shall be subject to criminal sanctions in accordance with the Criminal Law, mainly including two categories: crime of disrupting the socialist economic order as prescribed in Chapter III of the Specific Provisions of the PRC Criminal Law; and crime of property infringement as prescribed in Chapter V of the Special Provisions of the PRC Criminal Law. In addition, some crimes against socialist economic relations prescribed in other chapters of the PRC Criminal Law, such as crime of manufacturing and selling counterfeit drugs and crime of bribery, are economic crimes.

Foreign relations crimes: The crimes involving foreign relations. In China, foreign relations crimes mean the crimes committed by foreigners or stateless persons within the territory of China, the crimes committed by Chinese citizens against the rights and interests of foreigners, stateless persons or foreign countries, and the crimes committed by foreigners against China or Chinese citizens outside of China. Foreign relations crimes are under the jurisdiction of Chinese judicial organs and governed by Chinese law. If a foreigner with diplomatic privileges and immunities has committed a crime for which criminal responsibility shall be investigated, such case shall be settle through diplomatic channels.

Criminal compliance and anti-fraud investigation: Criminal compliance, as an upgraded form of traditional corporate compliance, is related to the risk of criminal liability, which means that it is an internal control mechanism against criminal risk that relates the compliance of an enterprise’s business activities and the level of effort made in such compliance with the existence and severity of the enterprise’s criminal liability. Anti-fraud investigation is intended to help enterprises prevent, investigate, handle, report and remedy their employees’ fraudulent practices, enhance corporate governance and internal control, reduce risks, and regulate official behaviors of their management and employees.

Typical Cases:

Intellectual property crimes and criminal actions:

Hua’s case of counterfeiting a registered trademark and selling goods with the counterfeited registered trademark (suspended sentence);

Yang’s case of selling goods with a counterfeited registered trademark (suspended sentence);

Wu’s copyright infringement case (suspended sentence);

Li’s case of counterfeiting a registered trademark (suspended sentence);

Criminal actions against IPR infringement for an Australian cosmetic company;

Criminal actions against IPR infringement for a well-known French tire company;

Criminal actions against IPR infringement for a Japanese game company;

Criminal actions against IPR infringement for a well-known French luxury bag company.

Duty-related crimes:

The corruption and bribery case against Xue, the board chairman of a city construction investment company (the first case of a district’s supervisory committee in Qingdao);

The corruption and bribery case against the deputy director of Inner Mongolia Office in Shanghai;

The embezzlement case against a senior executive of an online taxi company (withdrawn at the stage of investigation);

Jiang’s fund misappropriation case (withdrawn at the stage of investigation);

Gao’s case of offering a bribe to non-state functionaries;;

Xue’s theft and embezzlement case;

Tan’s corruption case;

The embezzlement case against a business manager of Pin An Insurance.

Smuggling crimes:

Wang’s case of smuggling ordinary goods and items (tax evasion of more than 11 million RMB, 3 years and 6 months);

Zhan’s case of smuggling ordinary goods and items (suspended sentence);

Zhu’s case of smuggling ordinary goods and items (suspended sentence);

Chen’s case of smuggling wastes (215 tons, on bail pending trial);

The case of smuggling ordinary goods and items against Wu, a professional shopper (suspended sentence);

Shen’s case of smuggling ordinary goods and items;

Zhang’s case of smuggling ordinary goods and items.

Economic crimes:

W's case of trading with undisclosed information (trading amount of 1.9 billion RMB, suspended sentence);

The case of a private hospital fraudulently taking medical insurance funds and falsely issuing invoices (dropped);

The case of illegally absorbing public deposits against a business manager of Jinlu Group;

The case of illegally absorbing public deposits against a senior executive of “He Pai Dai”;

The fund-raising fraud case against the actual controller of “Mai Zi Jin Fu”;

The case of illegally absorbing public deposits against a senior executive of Fuxing Group;

Chen’s case of illegally absorbing public deposits;

Xu’s case of organizing and leading a pyramid scheme;

Hou’s case of illegally operating “London Gold” (not dropped);

Zhou’s credit card fraud case (not dropped);

Yu’s document fraud case;

Li’s contract fraud case;

Zhang’s case of falsely issuing special VAT invoices;

Lu’s case of illegal disposal of seized or detained goods, false reporting of registered capital and loan fraud.

Foreign relations crimes:

The case of fraud and illegal operation of hundreds of millions RMB against H, a Thai in China (in Changchun, involving an amount of 230 million RMB, 3 years and 6 months);

The fraud case against a U.S. student of Fudan University (in Xiamen, 400 thousand RMB, case withdrawn);

Acting as an agent ad litem in a murder case of a British in China (in Shanghai, death, life sentence);

The case of illegally acquiring citizen information against Sun from Hong Kong (in Shanghai, over 20 million pieces of data, exempted from criminal sanctions);

The appeal against the careless driving conviction against a Korean Kim (in Shanghai, 126 mg BAC, one month’s detention).

Conventional crimes:

Wang’s drug trafficking case (36 kg, life sentence);

Wei’s rape case (exempted from criminal sanctions);

Liu’s negligent death case (one person dead, suspended sentence);

Liu’s wilful injury case (GBH, suspended sentence);

The case of obstructing official business against Yang, an airline captain (exempted from prosecution);

Zhao’s case of illegally acquiring a computer information system (49.26 million pieces of data, exempted from prosecution);

Zhang’s drug trafficking case;

Zhou’s drug smuggling case;

Ren’s environmental pollution case;

Zhou’s case of illegally organizing blood trade.

Non-litigious criminal procedures:

Initiating the reporting procedure for a store manager embezzlement case for a listed company in the garment industry (successfully filed in Beijing);

Initiating the reporting procedure for a senior executive embezzlement and commercial bribery case for a 4A advertising company (successfully filed in Shanghai);

Initiating the reporting procedure for a senior executive embezzlement case for a German biotechnology company (successfully filed in Beijing);

Initiated the reporting procedure for a trade secret infringement case for a Ningbo interior car trim company (successfully filed in Ningbo);

Applying for unfreezing the account of an Australian Chinese Pan suspected of being involved in underground money laundering transactions (in Taizhou, Jiangsu, successfully unfrozen);

Applying for unfreezing the account of an American MK suspended of being involved in underground money laundering transactions (in Beijing, successfully unfrozen);

Conducting anti-foreign bribery investigation for a U.S. wholly-owned enterprise in China;

Providing anti-commercial bribery crime training for a listed medical device company in China;

Providing anti-fraud investigation services for China National Petroleum Corporation;

Providing anti-fraud investigation services for Fuji Japan;

Providing anti-fraud investigation services for Beiersdorf Germany.