Chinese firms turn to US courts to fight sanctions, one case at a time

Prominent lawyer John Quinn says Chinese companies can argue their positions and win in US courts, despite heated geopolitical landscape

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American lawyer John Quinn says Chinese companies can still successfully attempt a defence against US sanctions in court. Photo: Handout

Published: 9:30pm, 7 Jan 2025

United States courtrooms have become proxy sites for broader geopolitical tensions with China, a leading commercial litigator said, referring to them as the place where “the tyre meets the road” in the heated rivalry between the two countries – especially as Chinese companies enact more assertive overseas expansion plans.

John Quinn, a founding partner of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP and a leading commercial litigator, said while Chinese companies are more scrutinised in the US compared to firms from other countries, they can get a fair trial there despite hawkish political narratives making the odds seem stacked against them.

“In the US, the legal system is not perfect, injustices happen. But the results we have achieved for Chinese companies refute the idea that there’s a prejudice that tilts the results,” Quinn said in an interview on Sunday.

As relations remain fraught between the world’s two biggest economies, new investment from Chinese firms in the US has been on the downward slope.

According to data from the US Bureau of Economic Analysis, first-year foreign direct investment expenditures of Chinese firms peaked in 2016 at US$27.4 billion and slowed dramatically in subsequent years, falling below the billion-dollar mark in 2019.

As a result, China is no longer among the top investors in the US, presently dwarfed by smaller economies like Qatar, Spain and Norway.