Such a story happened in Wengwentian. He is the general manager of Shanghai Oriental Crocodile Clothing Co., Ltd. invested by Singapore Crocodile International (Private) Co., Ltd. Now he looks back and regards this experience as a test. The Singapore crocodile (which has nothing to do with the French brand Lacoste, and the trademark of Lacoste is also crocodile) violates at least two survival rules of foreign investors who want to establish themselves in China: they don't pay close attention to their own careers; Secondly, we are not prepared for the possibility of conflict with the management of China.
1998, Shanghai Oriental Crocodile Clothing Co., Ltd. dismissed Fan Juanfen. Fan has been in charge of the company's business operation in China for a long time and holds a small number of shares in the company. The following week, there was an uproar in the company's Shanghai office. The company's documents were taken away and the hard disk in the computer was missing. Soon, two-thirds of employees in Shanghai left the company. Within a few months, Fan Juanfen registered a new company and began to sell men's sweaters, shirts and jackets in some stores. And these stores used to be retail stores of oriental crocodiles.
In fact, this story is very common: a foreign investor and a Chinese partner set up a company with various shareholding structures to bypass China's supervision of foreign companies' business activities. Foreign investors gave manager China considerable management authority, and manager China also owned a part of the company's equity. However, once the two sides have differences and disputes, it is difficult to get relevant legal protection.
In this incident, through a series of legal proceedings, the dispute lasted for several years. On the one hand, it also reflects that due to political reasons and the existence of local competitors, China's legal system is still at a loss to solve such disputes.
"The first rule is to try to solve such disputes before going to court," said a China lawyer who works in a foreign company in Shanghai. What about the second rule? "The second rule is to try to follow the first rule."
The amount involved in the crocodile incident is not too large, but obviously, it is becoming more and more personal. Hong Wenzhan, a Malaysian, is a golf enthusiast. He used to live in Los Angeles. After this incident, he felt his personal danger was increasing day by day. Later, he simply hired bodyguards to escort him to the golf course and even accompany him to take a sauna. This situation lasted for six months.
Fan Juanfen denied that there was anything wrong with her. She argued that she started a crocodile business in China, but was finally kicked out by greedy foreign partners. She pointed out that many employees leaving the company is the best proof of their trust in her.
How did things come to this? Let's go back to 1993. When Tan Hian Tsin, the founder of Singapore Crocodile International, visited China, he found that a large number of counterfeit products imitating his company's clothing were sold in China. He was introduced to Fan Juanfen, who only ran a small clothing trading company at that time, and granted Fan the license to sell crocodile clothing in China. 1 year later, Singapore Crocodile International invested US$ 800,000 to establish a wholly-owned Shanghai Oriental Crocodile Clothing Co., Ltd. in China to import and sell crocodile brand clothing, and Fan Juanfen naturally became the general manager of the company.
However, at that time, it was stipulated that wholly foreign-owned companies could not open retail stores in China, and with a few exceptions, foreign companies were absolutely not allowed to operate retail business. Therefore, Oriental Crocodile established six regional trading companies and held a small share of each trading company. Among the six trading companies, Fan Juanfen is the legal representative of four companies.
This strategy really worked at that time. In Shanghai, Shanghai Oriental Crocodile Clothing Co., Ltd. shares the warehouse with Shanghai Oriental Crocodile Trading Company. When the retailer wants goods, Oriental Crocodile Clothing Co., Ltd. transfers the products to Oriental Crocodile Trading Company, and the two parties settle accounts every month. Shanghai Oriental Crocodile Clothing Co., Ltd. started with a registered capital of US$ 6,543.8+0,000. With this strategy, it has grown into a profitable and rapidly expanding enterprise.
1998 cracks began to appear at the beginning. Singapore Crocodile International invited Hong to come to Shanghai to take charge of the business here. Hong said that this is to prepare for the listing of Singapore Crocodile International. Hong has been engaged in the clothing industry for a long time, but his Chinese is not fluent. He and Fan Juanfen had an argument over the company's accounts.
After Fan Juanfen was fired, Oriental Crocodile filed a series of lawsuits in Shanghai, accusing her and other former employees of 18 of misappropriating company funds to buy real estate for themselves. But Fan Juanfen said that these properties belong to their due wages. In this series of lawsuits, three of them were found to have lost, but the company won the rest of the lawsuits, although all the defendants appealed.
After this case entered the field of criminal justice, the situation became more and more complicated. 1In May 1999, police in Chengdu, a city in central China, detained Fan Juanfen for 26 days on suspicion of misappropriating public funds. Then the Shanghai police took her back to Shanghai in the name of Fan under their jurisdiction. Last year, the Chengdu police tried again to bring Fan Juanfen back to Chengdu for inspection, but they were seen having a fierce argument with the Shanghai police at the Shanghai airport and finally returned empty-handed.
In February this year, the Supreme People's Procuratorate revoked the arrest warrant against Fan Juanfen. The Supreme People's Procuratorate specializes in handling disputes between procuratorial organs across provinces and cities.
At the same time, during most of February, Fan Juanfen attended the annual meeting organized by an influential organization in Beijing as a special guest, giving advice and suggestions to the legislature in China.