I went to Henan for a court session on 13 Oct 2021, I went alone and rented a low to medium priced hotel close to the court in order to save costs for my client.
I went a day in advance of the trial to confirm the entrance to the courthouse. The main entrance to courthouses around the world is not always accessible, and the place where the trial will take place is not necessarily inside the courthouse.

This case is one of the more complicated cases of international trade dispute, and this case has all the more typical and common international trade points from which disputes may easily arise.


Who is the defendant?

The Proforma Invoice in this case was not stamped and only had an English name. But in China, the same English name can be translated in many ways. The defendant in this case was disreputable enough to have several companies operating in China, all using the same English name, and all registered with the same English name on the official website of the Chinese government.
In this case, the defendant uses Company A to conduct transaction with us, but actually it uses Company B to receive the payment as the English name of Company A and Company B are identical. As a result, our client is unable to distinguish who is cooperating with him.
Therefore, the critical question is which company is the correct defendant – Company A or Company B. If we sue Company A, they may argue that it is not the beneficiary; if we sue Company B, they may argue that we do not enter into the transaction with it.
In international trade disputes, many cunning suppliers will set up multiple companies, all using the same English name, many of which are shell companies, in order to escape legal responsibility.
In this case, we pointed out the real defendant by collecting and adducing evidence, and fully explaining to the judge, and asked required the defendant to bear the responsibility of this case.

Will the shareholders of the supplier be named as defendants?

In litigation, lawyers usually try to include the shareholders of the company as defendants as many as possible to prevent the company from being a shell company and the money being transferred by the shareholders, so that the shareholders will be jointly and severally liable. But in this case, the shareholders of the company changed their shareholders to another person after the dispute occurred in order to avoid liability.
Of course, there were ways to deal with this little trick, and we eventually succeeded in adding the shareholder as a defendant.
Everything went smoothly in this trial, except for the rainy weather.
In order to better prepare the judge to know more about the details of this case, I investigated the defendant’s cell phone number at the local mobile business office in Zhengzhou, Henan Province to prove the defendant’s identity. I also did due diligence on the defendant’s business registration information at the local Administration for Industry and Commerce to investigate the change of shareholders, and I obtained the payee’s account opening information at the local bank on 21 Oct 2021.
The day of the trial happened to be my birthday, I was a little nervous but excited, hoping that everything would go more smoothly on such an important day as my birthday.

The trial of this case proceeded as scheduled, and I have a few points to summarise from this trial.

1.In international trade, once you have agreed on a trade term with the seller/supplier, do not conduct any work beyond the scope of the trade term without permission.
In this case, our client and the seller agreed on the proforma invoice that it was Free On Board (FOB), and according to FOB, the seller is obliged to deliver goods at its own expense and the risk of loss and damage is transferred to the buyer upon loading. However, because the seller was late in delivering the goods, the buyer [our client] was worried and went to the seller’s factory to pick up the goods without permission. The judge would easily recognized the buyer’s act is a modification of the trade terms.

2.Be cautious to tell the seller that they can contact your freight forwarder if any issues arise.
This can be misunderstood by the seller to mean that you have given full authority to your forwarder to communicate with the seller on your behalf. If your forwarder amended the terms of the contract with the seller, even if the email was copied to you, it would be very difficult for you to understand what it means, which is likely to cause adverse consequences for you.
The trial went on for a week. During that time, sometimes we had to wait because the judge was in other sessions, and while I was waiting, I took a quick stroll around the neighborhood.

The cuisine of Henan-Mutton chow mein 

Henan Specialty Museum, right next door to Henan Central Hospital, has a pavilion displaying the largest body cavity dinosaur in Asia, as well as various ore and rock specimens.

Court trial video replay
URL：http://tingshen.court.gov.cn/live/24158783