King&Capital lawyers assisted an international logistics company to reach a favorable settlement in an arbitration case under the CIETAC Arbitration Rules for international logistics service procurement contract disputes.
The case was an international logistics service procurement contract dispute between the claimant, an international logistics company, and the respondent, with the project site located outside of China. The claimant's arbitration request amounted to more than 40 million yuan. During the arbitration process, the respondent filed a counterclaim, claiming an amount of more than 11 million US dollars, corresponding to more than 76 million RMB. Since the contract did not agree on the applicable law, both the Claimant and the Respondent agreed to apply the law of the People's Republic of China during the hearing. Mr. Chen Zhihui and Ms. Zhao Ruxuan of King&Capital acted as the representatives of the Claimant to participate in the arbitration proceedings.
At the beginning, after the contract performance dispute, both parties carried out several months of negotiation, after the negotiation is fruitless, the international logistics company entrusted Beijing King&Capital Law Firm to intervene in the handling. After accepting the commission, Mr. Chen Zhihui and Ms. Zhao Ruxuan quickly intervened to sort out the evidence of the case, clarify the rights and obligations of both parties and the performance of the contract. After weighing the program time, economic cost, and the basis of subsequent cooperation between the two parties, we suggested and assisted the client to continue the settlement negotiation with the other party. At the same time, in order to promote the project payback as soon as possible, Chen Zhihui's legal team assisted the client to start the arbitration procedure simultaneously, selected the arbitrator, formulated an all-round dispute resolution strategy, and adhered to our claims in a rational and justified manner.
On the one hand, the alternative arbitration request program, if the arbitration tribunal finds that the contract is invalid, based on the legal facts and legal consequences of the contract is invalid, request the arbitration tribunal to the first arbitration request for hearing. If the arbitral tribunal finds that the contract is legal and valid, based on the judgment of validity of the contract, combined with the agreement of the contract and relevant legal norms, the arbitral tribunal is requested to hear the case with the second request for arbitration. To the maximum extent possible, the arbitral tribunal will be assisted to fully consider the facts of the case, so as to avoid the need for the same dispute to be adjudicated twice before obtaining the corresponding relief.
On the other hand, in respect of the counterclaim of the other party, King&Capital's lawyers substantively examined a large number of offshore contracts signed between the other party and the third-party company, and made recommendations on the authenticity of the content of the contracts, the authenticity of the form, the appropriateness of the agreement on the rights and obligations, whether the third-party company performed its obligations in strict accordance with the agreement of the contract, whether the corresponding amount of money complied with the conditions of payment, and whether the other party should pursue or have the right to waive the third-party's breach of contract in the case where the third-party had already existed. We expressed our views on whether the third party should be held liable or be entitled to waive its liability for breach of contract, and whether there were other disputes over the settled costs, and we did not recognize the counterclaim of the other party in the arbitration and the way of calculating the amount of the corresponding claim.
In fact, in the arbitration procedure to win is not the only way to solve the case, after friendly negotiation can also realize the effect of all the disputes between the two sides of the package solution. Under the joint efforts of King&Capital lawyers, the client and the other party, a settlement program was successfully promoted to the satisfaction of both parties, which put an end to the litigation and maintained the long-term cooperative relationship between the two parties. Chen Zhihui and Zhao Ruxuan's work was fully recognized by the client.
The successful settlement of this case reflects the professional ability and rich experience of King&Capital lawyers in international commercial dispute resolution. King&Capital lawyers always adhere to the client-centered, uphold the professional spirit, to provide clients with integrated dispute resolution.
