Chapter III Business Scope and Practice Rules
Article 15A representative office and its representatives may only conduct the following activities that does not encompass Chinese legal affairs:
(1) to provide clients with the consultancy on the legislation of the country where the lawyers of the law firm are permitted to engage in lawyer's professional work, and on international conventions and international practices;
(2) to handle, when entrusted by clients or Chinese law firms, legal affairs of the country where the lawyers of the law firm are permitted to engage in lawyer's professional work;
(3) to entrust, on behalf of foreign clients, Chinese law firms to deal with the Chinese legal affairs;
(4) to enter into contracts to maintain long-term entrustment relations with Chinese law firms for legal affairs;
(5) to provide information on the impact of the Chinese legal environment.
Representative offices may directly instruct lawyers in the entrusted Chinese law firms, as agreed between both parties.
A representative office and its representatives shall not conduct any legal service activities or other for-profit activities other than those set forth in the first paragraph and the second paragraph of this Article.
Article 16A representative office shall not employ Chinese practitioner lawyers; its support staff employed shall not provide legal services to clients.
Article 17A representative office and its representatives shall not commit any of the following acts in their practice:
(1) to provide false evidence, conceal facts, intimidate or induce another with promise of gain to provide false evidence or conceal facts, or obstruct the opposing party's lawful obtaining of evidence;
(2) to accept money or other things of value from parties by using the advantage of providing legal services;
(3) to divulge commercial secrets or private matters of parties.
Article 18A representative of a representative office shall not be concurrently a full-time or part-time representative in two or more representative offices.
Article 19Representatives of a representative office shall be resident in China for not less than 6 months each year, if the said representatives fail to do so, they will not be registered in the following year.
Article 20A representative office may charge its clients fees when conducting legal services provided for in these Regulations. The fees collected must be settled within the territory of China.
Chapter IV Supervision and Administration
Article 21The judicial administration department of the State Council and the judicial administration departments of the people's governments of provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government, in accordance with their duties, are responsible for the supervision and administration of representative offices and their representatives.
Article 22A representative office shall, before March 31 of each year, submit to the judicial administration department of the peoples' government of the province, autonomous region or municipality directly under the Central Government where it is located for annual examination a copy of its license to practice and its representatives' certificates to practice, and the following materials of the previous year:
(1) information on their performance of legal services, including the legal affairs entrusted to Chinese law firms;
(2) its annual financial statement audited by an accounting firm, and documents certifying that its accounts have been settled within the territory of China and taxes have been paid according to law.
(3) information on the change of its representatives and the employment of Chinese support staff;
(4) information on the residence of its representatives in the territory of China.
(5) information on the registration of itself and its representatives.
(6) other information on the performance of the duties provided for in these Regulations.
The judicial administration departments of the people's governments of provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government shall, after finishing the annual examination of the representative offices that are located in their respective administrative regions, submit their examination opinions to the judicial administration department of the State Council for the record.
Article 23The judicial administration departments of the people's governments of provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government shall, when collecting fees in registering representative offices and their representatives or collecting fees in conducting annual examination of representative offices according to law, strictly follow the same standards for Chinese law firms and practitioner lawyers which are verified and determined by the pricing administration department of the State Council. All fees collected shall be turned over to the State Treasury.
Where the judicial administration departments of the people's governments of provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government impose administrative punishment of fines according to law, the fine decisions and collection of such fines shall be separated in accordance with the provisions of relevant laws and administrative regulations. All fines collected and illegal income confiscated shall be turned over to the State Treasury.
