I am running a small tech startup here in Singapore, but we're active globally. I have some ties to the US, and we also have a representative on the East Coast. We still look for affiliates, but it's a very particular niche, so we grab onto any match we see.
Recently, we had a conversation with an experienced sales person in California, who was generally OK with everything, but the talks came to an abrupt end when we handed her our NDA. She didn't like the jurisdiction being Singapore and was insisting on making it California. Her explanation was, "Jurisdiction not being California is an unneeded nuisance, and besides, I read that in Singapore, they cane people on the streets for chewing bubble gum"
. No, she is not stupid, she lived overseas for years, and her home is right in the middle of the Silicon Valley. Being insulted aside (seriously? a company asking to sign papers with its own jurisdiction is a nuisance for you?), a US jurisdiction was a non-starter for me. I know way too much about the US commercial justice system and would opt for nearly anything else; and if I could make an exception for a big client, a sales rep is definitely out of question. Plus, if someone makes a fuss over a stupid NDA, it's better to stay away from them.
That, however, raises a bigger question. When I was about to leave for Singapore from MA, many of my then-coworkers thought I was going to China "or something like that". For the record, I don't see it as being geographically illiterate - Singapore is tiny, the US is really far, and has a lot going on domestically to pretty much eclipse the rest of the world, etc.
But the question remains. Is there a way to convince at least an average well-traveled American that Singapore is OK as a jurisdiction? I did mention that every single multinational has their regional APAC headquarters here, etc.
Or we have to pay a bunch of local bloodsucking pencil-pushers to manage our empty local branch?
