SHANGHAI -- Nearly 100 Chinese businesses have been certified to invoke force majeure exemptions from contractual duties by a government trade council that deems the coronavirus outbreak as a qualifying disaster.
Under Chinese law, force majeure -- or act of God -- provisions are usually declared in the event of war, natural disaster, or intervention by state authorities. Commercial contracts generally contain such clauses, and if those conditions are met, a company is exempt from delivering goods or paying invoices, among other previously agreed-upon obligations.
