Even on US turf, culture clashes make China firms tough foes

Five months ago, an arbitration panel awarded Tang Energy Group at least $69 million after a contract to build wind farms collapsed and left Tang fighting for survival.

The company the panel ruled against — Aviation Industry Corp., a conglomerate owned by China's government — challenged the award.

The Chinese government backed two companies that were accused of rigging the price of Vitamin C in the U.S. market.

There's some hope that the task of fighting Chinese companies in U.S. courts will ease as they deepen their investment in the United States and their assets become easier to seize.

[...] as they increasingly expand internationally, they will need to manage their reputation and won't want to be known for eluding courts and skipping out on legal bills, says Dan Harris with the law firm Harris Moure in Seattle.

[...] for now at least, Harris says the Chinese can't always fathom how U.S. courts operate, aren't used to judges who are mostly immune to bribes and don't understand the consequences of defying court orders.

The act says foreign government agencies can claim immunity unless they're directly involved in commerce — a status that's subject to dispute.

Chinese officials countered that the commission is a government agency with immunity from U.S. courts.

AVIC, tangled in the dispute with Tang, has also claimed sovereign immunity in a case brought by Global Technology, a Michigan company that's U.S. sales rep for an AVIC subsidiary.

The U.S.-China Economic and Security Commission, a watchdog, complained last year that Chinese companies in the United States hid behind a "legal firewall" by claiming that Chinese secrecy and banking laws exempted them from U.S. complaints.

A corporate colossus, AVIC has 500,000 employees and 140 subsidiaries in businesses from aircraft manufacturing to financial services.