Jurisdiction Court: Jinhua Intermediate Court, Zhejiang, P. R. China
Case Summary:
USA Florida Y import and export Inc. was the importer in the deal (“Importer” and “Plaintiff”), importing a 40’ container’s scooter products from Zhejiang Yongkang W import and export Co., Ltd. (“Exporter” and “Defendant”), but after the Importer got the cargos and sold them to their customers, they found many scooters were defective, hence the Importer shipped the defective scooters back to China, which filled in a 20’ container, that is, about 50% of the scooters were defective. And the two parties of Importer and Exporter carried on negotiations on the case, the Importer requesting the Exporter to refund the payment, but not settlement achieved, hence the Importer sued the Exporter to Jinhua Intermediate Court. Jinhua is the city where the defendant was located.
Case Result: The case finally settled on court, under the intermediation of Court, the Defendant refunded the Plaintiff about USD15K, and the plaintiff gave up rest claims.
Explanations and Comments:
1. This is a quality defective dispute case, as we once wrote an article before, that “Why is quality dispute very challenging for buyer’s lawyers in China?”, so for the lawyers of Importers (buyers), this sort of case is very challenging.
2. A good doing and tactic of the Plaintiff, is that they provided court with witnesses of customers of Plaintiff, certifying that the scooter they bought, were defective and not works at all.
3. Settlement under intermediation of Court, is a quite common doing in China in nowadays. The advantage of this sort of solution, is to close the case quicker and earlier, and release the two parties of Plaintiff and Defendant from heavy burden and some costs. But a settlement does not tell who is right and who is wrong, and for the wrong-doers, they may commit wrong-doings again in future, because settlement does not punish them enough. So some Chinese says the intermediation is the “precious experiences of East”, this lawyer does not agree to it at all. It’s just a money-and-time-saving method and solution, sometimes at the cost of Justice, so it should not be encouraged publicly.
4. About case Jurisdiction, the Plaintiff firstly filed the case in Ningbo Intermediate Court, because the price term was FOB NINGBO, hence Ningbo is considered as "the place where the agreement was performed" by plaintiff, but finally this was not supported by court, merely the price term can not acertained it where the agreement was performed.