Legal Contract translation

[venture160]

hey I am in the middle of translating a contract for my company. there is one clause I can't quite accurately translate I know what it means, but I am just blanking on the correct english translation

5. 做好双方商议的其他事宜。

is it "all other concerning matters both parties will discuss" ?

I've got one more but its confidential, so dammit I'll have to do it on my own haha.

[roddy]

Complete all other matters agreed?

[venture160]

yea i know its killing me.. I am kind of frustrated... so simple., but I am not a lawyer so I am not good with written legal agreemtns in english

[roddy]

In my experience with Chinese contracts, they're often very poorly drafted and always contain at least one fundamentally meaningless clause (Both parties will obey the law. . . Both parties will implement the contract according to the contract . . . etc)

[gato]

Both parties will live long and prosper....

[Jockster]

"There will be dealings and other stuff, too." (meaningless in the original language, meaningless translation...).

From my own experience and what I've read, the exact content of a contract (in China) does not carry much weight in the end; signing a contract just signifies that "hey, we want to cooperate with these guys". The exact nature of the work to be done can change a lot in the course of implementation. And the aim, as far as I have seen and heard, is explicitly to get a win-lose situation, not win-win, which should be the basis of long-term cooperation.

The contract you're translating, which jurisdiction does it fall under? Just curious

[venture160]

management consulting, its between two foreign companies, but since most of their staff is Chinese the draft was written in Chinese, as the intern ... I was given the task of translating it in 2 hours, not fun, and as my second translation of a contract, it was pretty tense.

[Quest]

Looks like there's a market for bilingual lawyers?

[roddy]

Nope, 'cos nobody wants to pay for them . . .

[venture160]

its cheaper to hire a chinese legal aide who has perfect english and a western lawyer who speaks only english, but of course, in terms of productivity, you might get more out of a western bi-lingual lawyer, so in the end which is better?

[rose~]

Smaller local firms here in SH have a majority local-qualified local lawyers, many of whom are not admitted as lawyers overseas, but did an LLM or similar in the US, Australia or UK.

So their lawyers have a high level of written (if not spoken) English. They then may also employ one or two Chinese translators (PRC nationals) to perfect the written English, or a foreign national in a larger firm.

International firms are still a majority local-qualified local lawyers, but have more foreign and HK lawyers. The level of qualifications in these firms is amazing. It is a highly competitive market, there is a surplus of HK lawyers who are often trilingual available, and every single foreign lawyer I have met so far is also fluent in spoken Chinese and sometimes written as well; although probably there are some who are not. The local staff will invariably be graduates of Fudan, Beida, Qinghua, Coumbia...you name it.... In these three pools of talents, Mainland, HK and overseas, there are weaknesses in all three, but generally speaking the competion is already high and the standard will continue to rise as HKers improve their Mandarin, more foreigners speak Chinese and even more Mainlanders study abroad.

[Jockster]

its between two foreign companies, but since most of their staff is Chinese the draft was written in Chinese, as the intern

Interesting situation...so which version will carry weight in the end, the English or the Chinese. I think usually only one language will be considered primary and binding, right?

Anyways, good luck! Sounds like a challenge, alright...

[jinjin]

Hi,

I am a licensed attorney in America in a couple of states but wanted to do either international law, international business consulting, international (get the pattern?) mediation or anything helping private businesses that want to open up the market in China (of course with international travel ).

Anyway, I'm Chinese American and speak fluent Mandarin (but not technical or legal) and unfortunately have forgotten my schooling at the Chinese School so I no longer can read/write (although I think I can pick it back up again, but of course, not to the level required to be a Chinese attorney).

I have been accepted to Tsinghua and BeiDa's LLM program (I've pretty much made my decision which one I will attend) and I know it will have growing pains and won't prepare me to be an attorney in China, but my question is, what could someone like me do with a law degree,speak Mandarin, and with hopefully a familiarity with Chinese Law/culture and whatever contacts I make in Beijing? With so many locally qualified attorneys, I'm sure I shouldn't hope on landing an associate position at a law firm unless and until I am fluent in writing/reading as well, but my goals are to do something in business anyway.

Any and all constructive thoughts will be greatly appreciated.

[gato]

If you want to practice law, your competitive advantage is actually your English ability, with your Chinese as an added bonus. Law firms in China (local or foreign) need people who have solid English language drafting skills, gained through experience working at American or UK firms. If you have that experience, you have a good chance of getting a law firm job in China even if your Chinese ability is somewhat sketchy. But if you don't have that law firm experience, your chances would be weaker. In that case, even if your Chinese is good, you may not be that much better off when competing with the thousands of law school graduates every year from the just top schools like Renmin University, Fudan, Tsinghua, Beida, etc.

[lawyeralbert]

It sounds like the text is trying to say:

"other matters shall be resolved by mutual agreement between the parties"

 

Does it make sense this way?

[imron]

Yes, but given that this thread was last posted to 9 years ago, I don't think your answer is going to be much use to the OP.