Legal Translation In Foreign Direct Investment

Foreign direct investment (FDI) is certainly never easy. When businesses invest abroad, they do not only have to deal with complicated administrative aspects, but also face language related challenges: Companies struggle with loads of paperwork in foreign languages and particularly with its legal content. This is where they need legal translation services. Today we will explore some aspects of legal translation for FDI purposes and highlight why it is so important to choose a high quality language service provider.

Typical Legal Translation Requirements

Particularly in the business registration process and in the initial phase, there are usually piles of paperwork that need to be translated. After that, when everything is up and running, the volume of documents typically decreases. However, as long as the business continues, there will certainly always be demand for new translations.

Typical documents include:

– Forms for business registration, such as company charters, shareholder lists, etc.

– Import/export licenses (for example to import manufacturing equipment or to export products)

– Tax related documents

– Supporting material to open bank accounts and other financial paperwork

– Contracts (such as employment contracts, business contracts with local service providers, property rental contracts, etc.)

– Dossiers for visas, work permits, health/social insurance and tax sign-up for foreign staff

Generally, all sorts of forms for public administration purposes and communication with official institutions

FDI Documents: Beyond Purely Legal Translation

As you can see, many of these documents do not only deal with legal content in a strict sense, but also require expertise other fields, including finance, accounting, economics, trade, administration, etc. Nonetheless, legal translators are often an excellent choice for all these documents for several reasons:

– First, to become legal translators, linguists have normally been in the translation industry for many years, which means that they cannot only do legal language translation, but are also familiar with terminology used in banking, business, economics, etc.

– Second, because of the long time they had to spend in the profession to move to legal text translation, they generally have a particularly professional and precise approach, which is clearly reflected in the quality of their work.

– Third, legal translators have a very clear understanding of the legal implications of their translations and therefore pay extra attention to details in order to avoid problems.

For these reasons, language service providers often assign any FDI related work to their legal translators.

Certified Legal Translations Or Translations Without Certification?

While some of these documents are translated for internal usage, others need to be handed in at official institutions, which might require certified legal translation. However, in practice, this will often depend on specific situations and not all institutions expect a certification. To avoid delays, make sure to find out if you are required to provide a certified translation or not!

Importance Of Quality

Many businesses with FDI activities experience problems with legal translation services. These problems can typically be classified as quality issues or delays.

– Quality issues: Legal translations for FDI purposes belong to those types of translations in which mistakes can have severe consequences. Mistranslations, omissions, wrong numbers, etc. need to be avoided at all costs.

– Delays: Unfortunately, many translation service companies do not stick to agreed deadlines. This is always annoying, but in contexts like setting up a business abroad, it is particularly problematic. Many processes in FDI can be described as a sequence of steps that need to be completed in a certain order and within certain timeframes. If you do not complete one step within the set timeframe because you do not receive translations on time, it is possible that you will miss deadlines and need to re-arrange your entire plan.

With a quality legal translation services provider, such issues can be avoided. Choose a good translation agency that carefully selects its translators, has strict quality assurance policies and understands the importance of your projects!

elionetwork has been a reliable legal translation provider for clients with all sorts of foreign direct investment activities. With our strategically located offices in Singapore, Bangkok and Phnom Penh, an expert network oflinguists working with over 55 languages, strict quality assurance measures in place and a wide range of additional services, we have all it takes to provide truly excellent translations. Contact us now to discuss your needs!