August 5 – August 11
Sign up for our Chug-Off for Charity event, with all proceeds going to Magic Hospital. Andray Abrahamian wrote about how not to do journalism in China, using Channel 4 as an example. Beige Wind wrote about ethnic friendship and the music video “Harmonious Xinjiang.”
Xinhua accidentally published porno again, then fell for a satirical Borowitz Report. A woman in Hong Kong went crazy on a foreigner with a racist rant for the ages. Stone Authority Brother recapped the WWE house show in Shanghai.
WSJ says its Chinese website was not blocked after all. A young woman was stabbed multiple times outside Communication University of China, this after a manager was stabbed to death in Jingkelong. Here’s the best picture of Chinese leaders, shirtless, you’ll see.
Cantonese is less weird than Mandarin, apparently. In the quarterfinals of the FIBA Asia Championship, China lost to Chinese Taipei for the first time ever. Kobe Bryant is making Chinese fans happy again (and making them cry).
Chinese reporter stages feel-good story. Scooterist knocked off scooter by theif, hurt badly. Passengers thrown out of bus window.
Comment of the Week:
I was on the front page of a Chinese newspaper http://t.co/93bpXlD15n #VillainsLife
— MaX CoXXX (@maxcoxxx) August 7, 2013
THE SITUATION THIS WEEK NOT GOOD FOR RUSSELL BROWN OF LEHMANBROWN INTERNATIONAL ACCOUNTANTS AND BRITISH CHAMBER OF COMMERCE IN BEIJING
A huge financial audit scandal blowing up right now involving the current Chairman of the British Chamber in China and the accounting firm LehmanBrown, check it. LehmanBrown, an American-British 50-50 JV in China has just been torn apart by internal litigation:
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/edward-lehman-cleared-by-hong-kong-court-of-appeal-decisions-black-day-for-russell-brown-as-edward-lehman-scores-hat-trick-of-wins-in-hong-kong-legal-proceedings-218815951.html
Ed Lehman, an American national, has obtained damages of USD1.4million against his Co-Founder Russell Brown over ownership. That’s in line with persistent fraud accusations about Russell Brown over the years because LehmanBrown are TWO firms: one a BVI offshore entity with no alligence or reporting back to any regulatory authority, operating in China as a WFOE and not as a licensed accounting firm with the Ministry of Finance, and the other as a Chinese owned firm (Brown’s wife and mistress of Lehman Brown Partner Dickson Leung) under a different name. They use the Chinese firm to claim US PCAOB status as a firm authorized to do China audit on US companies in China but sign off the BVI unlicensed company as the entity and receive foreign dollars from clients. That’s fraud.
A Beijing lawyer with US clients whose China audits have been done by LehmanBrown may find some big fees and kudos for digging some American corporates out of trouble if they can get to the following:
1) Are LehmanBrown registered with the Chinese Ministry of Finance as a foreign invested audit firm?
2) If not, you have a blatant case of audit fraud.
Over to the BC acolytes and hunting journalists trolling here for investigation…could be bigger than GSK…just remember that Beijing Cream broke the story first!!!
The “LehmanBrown” trademark saga has taken a number of turns this year, from the April 25th, 2013 judgment of the Higher People’s Court of Beijing against Russell Brown’s consultancy to Russell’s Consultancy losing its account on LinkedIn. In addition to Edward Lehman being cleared of all charges by the Hong Kong Court of Appeals, the Higher People’s Court of Beijing ruled against Russell Brown as Legal Representative of his Consultancy and denied their “claimed” ownership of the trademark “LehmanBrown”. Further news shows that his opposition to related trademarks has been denied and the Consultancy’s links misrepresenting their firm as “LehmanBrown” (and CPA certified) have been removed from the ACCA website of approved employers. A LinkedIn account for this organization, previously claiming to be titled “LehmanBrown” no longer exists and Russell Peter Brown himself has now been removed as Treasurer of the Rotary Club of Beijing.
To read more about the details of this large-scale infringement and IP adventure in the People’s Republic of China please visit the links below:
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/lehmanbrown-trademark-dispute-concluded-edward-lehman-victorious-against-russell-brown-chair-of-british-chamber-of-commerce-in-china-in-final-ruling-of-chinese-peoples-courts-222293931.html
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/russell-brown-chair-of-british-chamber-of-commerce-in-china-fails-in-attempt-to-lodge-opposition-against-the-registration-of-trademark-lehman-bush-222942811.html
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/chairman-of-the-british-chamber-of-commerce-in-china-russell-brown-removed-from-position-as-treasurer-of-the-rotary-club-of-beijing-and-his-consultancy-no-longer-listed-on-linkedin-or-as-approved-employer-of-the-association-of–227604801.html
Media contact:
dtorjesen@Lehmanbrowncpa.com
LehmanBrown aren’t a foreign licensed audit firm in China. The only ones who are were given JV licenses 20 years ago and was the then Big 5 (including Arthur Anderson) plus BDO and Grant Thornton. They didn’t give any others out after that.
This means that LehmanBrown have been misrepresenting themselves as an audit practice by claiming that the English name of their Chinese firm is “LehmanBrown” but legally that isn’t true. The real LehmanBrown are a company registered in Hong Kong and are also not under the regulation of the Hong Kong authorities either. So the whole thing is a scam.
I wonder if anyone will do anything about it though – Russell Brown’s Chinese wife is the daughter of a Military General. As usual the Chinese Government won’t care if under US regulations a firm had a dodgy audit in China from a foreign practice. But if the PCAOB holds an investigation or one of LehmanBrown’s clients starts to dig about, realizes the truth and complains, then the shit could hit the fan. t
Russell Brown is well fucked up. He tried this infringement shit on with Dezan Shira a few years ago and I remember Chris Devonshire-Ellis sued him, the story was in China Briefing at the time. Brown was well in with the British Chamber at the time and created all sorts of nasty shit about CDE as a result (not that I think he cares). Lehman Brown have a habit of well dodgy practices. If Brown isn’t careful he’ll end up like that other Brit, Peter Humphrey of ChinaWhys who is now in jail in China.
From the Rip-Off Report:
http://www.ripoffreport.com/r/-lehman-lee-xu/beijing-select-stateprovince-100600/lehman-lee-xu-ed-lehman-and-grace-wong-highly-rated-china-law-firm-will-rip-you-off-if-708121
If it is either Lehman Brown or Lehman Lee & Xu run a fucking mile. Both Russell Brown and Ed Lehman have very poor reputations in China.
And so it continues … online commentary with the use of sock-puppets. I wouldn’t be surprised if the above was started and/or commented on not by the main characters in the news piece but by none other than CDE and other such characters. It would fit their track records perfectly.
LehmanBrown is a local Chinese CPA firm. Russell Brown runs a consultancy that is NOT a local Chinese CPA firm. Russell Brown’s consultancy has infringed on the registered trademark/service mark LehmanBrown, he knows this because of the judgment rendered by the Beijing High Court against Russell Brown on April 25, 2013. Mr Brown’s consultancy has been duly raided on many occasions by the Shenzhen Administration of Industry of Commerce and the Guangzhou Administration of Industry and Commerce (these are administrative organs of the government) for trademark infringement and has been dully filed by these organs. LehmanBrown CPA is indeed a registered Chinese CPA firm with license no 110000002120671 with the Ministry of Finance and the Chinese name is 北京雷曼会计师事务所有限责任公. Russell Brown is not a CPA in China or the UK. Russell Brown is not a director or partner of any CPA firm in the world, his consultancy is merely a consulting WFOE, they are not licensed to perform China audits. Mrs. Zhou Han Brown is not a CPA, she is not licensed to perform Chinese audits and is not a director of any CPA firm in the world. The Brown’s have infringed on the trademark of an already existing Chinese licensed CPA firm.
To read more about the administrative raids on Russell Brown’s consultancy in Guangzhou and Shenzhen please refer to the links below.
http://www.lehmanlaw.com/press-room/china-law-news/office-news/china-law-news/article/4105/russell-pete.html
http://www.lehmanbrowncpa.com/en/press/news_view.asp?id=8701
http://blawg.lehmanlaw.com/wordpress/?p=2068
Dunno about sock puppets or CDE there’s a lot of negative stuff out there about Russell Brown and Lehman Brown. This is what happens when two partners in the same firm fall out. It’s nothing to do with CDE. But a lot to do with Russell Brown and Ed Lehman, both of whose careers in China appear to involve dubious ethical practice, ripping people off, slating their competitors and generally behaving like total assholes.