One thing's for sure: 2008 is going to be extremely interesting for lawyers here. You have some major legislation coming into effect very quickly on the tax and labor fronts, the anti-monopoly law later on in the year, and most likely movement on the changes to the patent law (and possibly trademark as well).

Here's the latest in the realm of cross-border transactions and competition:

China will introduce more than 20 supporting regulations on foreign mergers and acquisitions (M&A) of domestic firms before August, a senior Chinese legislator said on Saturday.

The regulations will come out in a series before the Antitrust Law goes into effect on Aug. 1, 2008, Cheng Siwei, vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, told a forum in Beijing.

The regulations will help ensure that foreign M&A deals promote China's economic growth without threatening its economic security, Cheng stated.

Under the Antitrust Law, China would scrutinize foreign M&A proposals if they posed a potential threat to national security, he noted.

To evaluate foreign M&A deals, the first factor should be whether the domestic firms were fairly priced. The second was whether the deal would lead to company asset growth, Cheng added.

"M&A" might sound rather innocuous, but purchasing some or all of the equity in a local company has been a very popular way for foreign companies to move into China during the last couple of years. The only reason it hasn't been hotter is government restrictions.

Remember that the most important aspect of all of this is enforcement. We are going to have new laws galore in 2008, but it's anyone's guess whether the new tools will be used for proper oversight or for protectionism. I think we'll probably see a lot of both.

If we do have additional guidance in the form of implementing regulations, however, this will be most welcome. One of the biggest problems in this area is the ad hoc nature of these decisions. Too much discretion can lead to unpredictable outcomes; whenever you can get additional guidance, this has the potential to limit that discretion. Not always, but we can hope.