Recently, LegalOne, an internationally renowned legal services rating and research organization, announced that Mr. Ma Zhao's “Representing a Third Party to Successfully Rescind a Judgment” was awarded the LegalOne Merits (Exemplary) rating.
Basic Facts of the Case
A trading company (hereinafter referred to as the “Client”) represented nearly 200 homebuyers and enjoyed a claim of nearly RMB 100 million due to the contractual fraudulent behavior of the former de facto controller of an industrial company. Thereafter, the Principal, as the applicant for enforcement, initiated enforcement proceedings against an industrial company. During the enforcement process, the client discovered that a pawn company had obtained an effective judgment through another lawsuit, claiming that the only real estate available for enforcement of a certain industrial company has the right of priority, resulting in the client's claim of nearly 100 million yuan facing the risk of having no property available for enforcement.
For this reason, the client filed a third-party avoidance lawsuit, requesting that the improper effective judgment be set aside. The case went through the first instance of Beijing Chaoyang District People's Court and the second instance of Beijing No. 3 Intermediate People's Court, both of which were represented by Mr. Ma Zhao. In the end, the court of second instance set aside the original improper judgment, and the client's litigation demand was fully supported.
Practice Difficulties and Case Significance
1. A group dispute case with a winning rate of one in ten thousand, breaking through the conventional judicial practice.
The third party's revocation claim is related to the stability of the effective judgment, and the success rate of the same kind of case is less than 2% in the whole country. As the case was heard by the original panel of the first instance and the rate of revision of the judgment of the second instance was extremely low, the overall probability of winning the case was less than one in ten thousand. At the same time, the case involved the personal interests of nearly 200 homebuyers, and was a typical group dispute case concerning the security of many families' properties and social stability. The ultimate success of the case provided a valuable sample of judicial practice for similar difficult third-party avoidance claims.
2. Multiple legal relationships are intertwined, breaking through the traditional logic of core disputes.
This case involves debt transfer, legal personality denial, false lawsuit screening and other complex legal issues. In addition, the pawn company, industrial companies and other companies are subject to the same actual controller and his family associated control, hidden and intertwined legal relationships. Mr. Ma innovatively applied penetrating adjudication thinking to break through the limitations of the surface contract terms, and eventually prompted the court of second instance to find that the three companies constituted affiliated control, and that the original litigation had malicious collusion and concealment of key facts, which overthrew the decision made by the court of first instance based on the literal meaning of the contract only.
3. Tackle all-round referee obstacles, maximize the maintenance of the client's legitimate rights and interests.
Ma zhao lawyer in the process of handling the case faced multiple challenges: one is in the first instance proceedings against the original trial panel's predetermined position; Second is to collect and fix a number of companies mixed personality, debt transfer of key evidence; Third is to refute the other side of the "transfer of debt did not obtain the creditors explicitly agree to the core of the defense. To this end, Mr. Ma carried out a lot of detailed work, including submitting tens of thousands of words of opinions, maintaining weekly communication with the judge, and going to prison to investigate and collect evidence. In the end, he successfully persuaded the court of second instance to revoke the original judgment, which saved the potential execution of nearly 100 million yuan of claims for nearly 200 homebuyers.
4. Demonstrate judicial justice, with significant social demonstration significance of the case won.
Not only for nearly 200 families to save a huge amount of property losses, to avoid social conflicts caused by the failure to realize the claims, but also to crack down on the use of affiliated companies, transfer of property through malicious litigation, avoidance of enforcement and other illegal acts. The case highlights the key role of the principle of penetrating adjudication in upholding fairness and justice, and provides clear adjudication guidelines for similar group third-party avoidance claims.
LegalOne is an independent global legal services rating and research firm with a core team with over a decade of experience in the international legal media. Through years of exchanges with corporate executives and reference to the current needs of corporate executives and attorneys general, LegalOne has pioneered a new evaluation mechanism based on the practical abilities of program participants. Through the evaluation and rating of commercial transactions, dispute resolution cases and intellectual property cases, as well as the ratings and evaluations of legal consultants by clients, we provide important references for corporate decision makers.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
