Newsletter
REPRESENTATION OF FOREIGN COMPANIES IN ROC LITIGATION
In our last issue we reported on the Supreme Court opinion (rendered in a case involving infringement on a US legal person's copyright) that the question of who may represent a US company in litigation in the ROC should be determined by the provisions of US law, and that the stipulation of the ROC Company Law that only the chairman or directors have the right to represent the company should not apply in such cases.
The Prosecutor's Office of the Taiwan High Court reportedly recently asked the National Bar Association in a letter dated 7 December 1998 to inform all attorneys of the following: When an authorized representative of a foreign company files a criminal complaint (or application for re-consideration of a case) on behalf of the company and appoints an attorney as an agent for such proceeding , the party should specify in the Power of Attorney the grounds for the appointment (e.g., relevant laws of the place in which the company is registered or provisions of the company's articles of incorporation), and should furnish relevant evidence (e.g. a letter of authorization from the board of directors or other legal authorization, or registration documents issued by the state government), for purposes of determining whether the named representative is indeed authorized to file a criminal complaint (or application for a re-consideration of a case) on behalf of the company.