Alibaba Hires Ex-U.S. Official to Aid Washington Lobbying
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Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. hired former U.S. official James Mendenhall as China’s biggest e-commerce company steps up an appeal to Washington to remove its Taobao site from a list of “notorious markets” for piracy.
Mendenhall will represent Alibaba in talks with the U.S. government and industry groups over intellectual property rights protection, John Spelich, a Hong Kong-based spokesman at the Chinese Internet company, said in an e-mail today. Mendenhall is a counsel at the Washington DC office of Sidley Austin LLP, according to the law firm’s website.