On March 4, China Business Law Journal announced the winners of the Deals of the year 2025 (Deals of the year 2025). After examining the importance, complexity, innovation, and size of each project, King&Capital Law Firm's Mr. Ma Zhao won the Deals of the year 2025 award for his case “Qixin Tongda Wins Third Party Avoidance Claim”.
Basic Facts of the Case
A trading company (hereinafter referred to as the “Client”) represented nearly 200 homebuyers and had a claim of nearly RMB 100 million due to the contractual fraud of the former actual 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 claims were fully supported.
Difficulties and Significance
1. A group dispute case with a winning rate of one in ten thousand, breaking through the judicial practice norms.
The third party's revocation claim is related to the stability of the effective judgment, and the success rate of similar cases nationwide is less than 2%. 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 penetrating adjudication principle in maintaining fairness and justice, and provides clear adjudication guidelines for similar group third-party avoidance claims.
China Business Law Journal is the leading bilingual legal media in the international market, specializing in providing practical legal advice and in-depth analyses for corporate lawyers and Chinese and foreign lawyers engaged in cross-border investment in China.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
