A seminar called “Star Academy of International Law” was held on June 10th, 2018, in the Guanghua Tower, Fudan University. It is organized by “Customs Law & International Law Research Center” which is under Fudan Law School. The attendees are mainly law school alumni pursuing different legal professions including Judges, Lecturers, Lawyers, Bankers, and Managers in Multinational Enterprises. The seminar was chaired by Professor Mr. HE Li. Two other Professors from Fudan Law School, Associate Dean Ms. CHEN Li and Mr. GONG Baihua were also invited to comment on the opinions during the discussion. 

Four alumni were invited as guest speakers to address their thoughts on certain legal issues, which are related to their working fields. Mr. WANG Dong, as a practicing lawyer, brought up a common issue in the area of foreign investment, namely, the Variable Interest Entity (VIE). He explained how VIE was used to bypass the supervision and restriction on foreign investor’s access to certain industries, and then provided some deep dive insights on the detailed arrangement of such structure.   

Ms. WANG Fang is a judge specializing in IP law and its enforcement. Her sharing this time includes: 1) Trend and relevant statistics of IP law proceedings in the Jiangsu Province in the year of 2017; 2) Methods as applied to determine the damages in IP law suits; and 3) Views on the threshold to criminalize violation conducts of IP law, and the pilot trial reform in Jiangsu Province as to set up a joint tribunal in order to combine all the considerations from criminal, civil, and administrative perspectives in a single one proceeding. 

Ms. Meng Qi is a lecturer teaching in a university. Her topics include: 1) Introduction of the course of ideological and political education and its implementation in the universities, and 2) Sharing of her personal development path and future plan in the academic research. 

Being a Customs officer in China Customs for 5 years, and with more than 10 years’ working experience in Multinational Companies, Mr. LIN Qing is keen to analyze the relationship and interactions between Customs authorities and Multinational Enterprises both of whom are major players in the World Trade arena. By comparing the world-wide goods flow, transaction flow and value chain of the IC chips and IT industry, he argues that existing Customs valuation rules need to consider how to deal with Transfer Pricing appropriately and effectively, and it will be helpful to attract more foreign investment and goods flow, by setting up onshore settlement bank account for Multinational Companies. As to trade barriers, he thinks that complexity of Country of Origin Rules due to growing bilateral FTAs may become an inevitable obstacle, as it adds more costs to companies for qualified Country of Origin certificates. Besides, FTA provides WTO contracting parties another means to play political games, thus some of the contracting parties are not obliged to develop new rules under WTO multinational scheme.   

In the session of free discussion, more opinions on VIE are shared. E.g. Professor CHEN Li said that VIE blurred the standard to determine a corporation’s nationality under Chinese law, which, according to her understanding, mixed the standard of domicile and standard of controlling. Professor GONG Baihua thinks that to legitimize all existing VIE and to illegalize newly-setup VIE from being set up could be a more practical way for Chinese authorities to deal with VIE.

US China Customs Tariffs in 2018 is surely a hot topic for researchers on International Business and Trade Law. There’re different views on the prospects too. An anonymous vote was conducted, with 1/3 people believe it will become a trade war, and 2/3 people tend to think both sides will compromise with each other in the end. There is also extended discussion on WTO, with 3/5 people are not optimistic on it, while 2/5 people still feel confident on it.

Since 2017, the annual “Star Academy on International Law” have been held for second time in 2018. It has become a regular platform for graduated law school alumni to exchange their views and experiences in terms of theories and practical issues related to International Public Law, International Economic Law, and International Private Law.