Being Swedish lawyers with in-house experience from the US, Nordic entrepreneurs want to meet us for a coffee to pick our brains on the legal stuff you need to know when you start up your business in the US. In fact, this is how this whole website started – when we realised that the questions we got were more or less the same, regardless of industry or size of the company that was asking, we figured we might as well just put all this information together.
Here are the top 10 things people tend to ask us about:
- Incorporation – Should I incorporate, or should I just set up a sales office? What will it cost? Are there less expensive options, and will they be as good as the more expensive ones? Does it matter for working permit and taxation what kind of entity I run? Will my parent company be liable for the doings of my US sub? And should I establish a Delaware corporation or a California one? What’s a “flip”?
- Data handling – What do I need to know about data handling? Safe Harbour, Privacy Shield, GDPR – it all seems so difficult. To be honest, I’m a bit scared, but do I actually need to worry about this, or are lawyers just making it seem more complicated than it is?
- Import/export – Since we’re not selling from the US, we don’t need to worry about import or export licenses, right? (spoiler alert: well, maybe you do – for example, if you’re selling an app through AppStore this can be considered as exporting from the US)
- Taxes – Should I worry about sales tax? What about my private taxation? Is it really true that California isn’t part of the double taxation treaty between US and Sweden??
- Immigration and visas – I can’t afford to hire an immigration lawyer. Can I apply for a visa myself, and what visa should I go for? How long will it take? Will my spouse be able to work as well? Can’t I just use an ESTA, as long as I don’t stay for more than 3 months per visit?
- Employees – How do the employment rules work in the US? Is it true you can actually terminate an employee without notice? Can’t I just hire independent contractors, so that I don’t have to worry about the responsibility that comes with being an employer? Who can make sure I comply with all the laws and regulations there are around employment? And what about stock options: Should we set up a sub-plan for US, or can we use our Nordic program? Do we need to make an evaluation first? Should the stock options be registered somewhere?
- Product liability – Will I get sued if there is something wrong with my product? Can I take an insurance to protect me from this risk?
- Protecting IP – How do I make sure I to protect my ownership to my IPR? Should it be me or my company that owns it? What different kind of protections are there?
- Thinking ahead – What will an potential investor or buyer look for in a dataroom? Where do I really need to get things right from the start, and where can I wait until I have the money to start hiring attorneys? Is there a check-list I can follow?
- Help! – Where can I find someone who helps me with legal, compliance, administration and all the boring stuff that comes with running a business?
We will cover all this, and more in our upcoming blog posts – so stay tuned!
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