When a foreign company entrusts a domestic lawyer to sue in China, it needs to notarize and authenticate the following documents:

(1) Subject qualification certificate

If the client is an enterprise , then the enterprise registration certificate and the identity certificate of the legal representative should be submitted. Companies in the United Kingdom (including the British Virgin Islands/Virgin Islands and Cayman Island), the United States, Hong Kong and other places have company secretariats (company secretaries), and the principal can instruct the company secretary to submit their company establishment documents (CI, that is, certificate of incorporation (or business registration certificate) is submitted to the local notary office for notarization, and then the notarized document is submitted to the Chinese embassy or consulate in the country for authentication. Note: These company establishment documents do not indicate who the company’s directors and legal representatives are. However, the registration documents of German limited companies (the company name ends with GmbH) will indicate the name, residence and other information of the directors. Regarding companies in Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Companies Registry website can check company registration information, company directors, and whether the company has set up charges/mortgages. You can check company registration information without going in person. You only need to pay a small inquiry fee, but it is only Can pay in Hong Kong dollars.

Proof of identity of the legal representative can be produced by a lawyer or client to prove that a certain person is the legal representative of the client and can act on behalf of the client externally and sign all legal documents. The specific content depends on the situation, because the notary authorities in some countries do not accept the term "plenipotentiary" and will require it to be stated on what specific matters the legal representative can act on behalf of the company and what legal documents he can sign. uses, etc. Who signs the legal representative’s identity certificate? This is a question that can be signed by the company secretary; in practice, a judge has been consulted and the principal of the client signs to prove that he is the legal representative. The court also accepts this. The court attaches great importance to whether the document has been notarized and authenticated. I think when representing a case, a lawyer should maintain full communication with the client and carefully consider many details. Because the notarization and certification procedures for foreign-related cases are cumbersome, it will take some time to send legal documents from abroad to China. After receiving the documents, I will find out If there are flaws, it will be more difficult to deal with, especially if the case is urgent.

In addition, because the legal documents submitted to the court or arbitral tribunal are required to be in Chinese (except in some cases where English is applicable to arbitration, the arbitrators themselves have relatively high English proficiency), it is necessary to prepare the identity certificate of the legal representative and the following steps When mentioning power of attorney and other materials, it is best to draft Chinese and English versions, so that the notarized and certified version can be submitted directly to the court or arbitral tribunal, saving translation fees and time. Judging from the several cases I have experienced, in the United States and Cayman Island, the Chinese and English versions are notarized and certified separately. It is estimated that the notary office does not accept legal documents in Chinese and English versions. However, the materials prepared by the French parties are Chinese and English versions and are notarized by the local court.

(2) Power of Attorney (POA)

When making a power of attorney, try to make bilingual versions in Chinese and English, or several separate versions written in English and Chinese to save time. Go to translation fees and translation time. In addition, according to the actual situation of the case and taking into account the later execution of the case, the authorization authority should be written in full to avoid the trouble of preparing a separate power of attorney and going through notarization and certification procedures during the execution stage.

Foreign notarization and certification process:

1. Entrust an international notary lawyer or notary public to perform the notarization;

2. Send the notarized documents to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the country For authentication;

3. Send the documents authenticated by the country’s diplomatic department to the Chinese embassy or consulate in the country for authentication.