Maximizing Opportunities, Minimizing Risks

3 Questions to ADWA on the challenges with ASIAN commercial contract law.

ADWA is the first and only network of German speaking lawyers in Asia with offices in China, India, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Sin­ga­pore, Thailand and Vietnam (www.adwalaw.com).

Commercial law can be tricky - especially when you are dealing with foreign countries and cultures. We talked to Michael A. Müller, Rainer Burkardt and Dr. Andreas Respondek, LL.M, three of the lawyers from ADWA, the German lawyers' network that provides legal services for German-speaking countries in ASIA. 

ADWA has a network of seven German lawyers in eight Asian countries. What inspired you to found ADWA?

MÜLLER: The foundation of ADWA was primarily based on our clients’ needs, of which many work on projects involving different countries. We established ADWA to provide adequate all-round support with a single point of contact for our clients.

What does the collaboration within ADWA look like?

BURKARDT: Besides regular conference calls, we meet two or three times a year to visit clients and hold seminars. For example next month, we will meet in Sin­ga­pore and talk about common pitfalls in commercial contracts and all German companies are invited to join us in the German Centre.

Can you name one classic pitfall that a German company faces with Asian commercial contracts?

RESPONDEK: The biggest pitfalls occur whenever someone is trying to apply his Central-European code of conduct without adaptions to their business in, e.g. Thailand. This often leads to failure or even disaster. And this is what we want to protect our clients from.