400-700-3900

National Toll Free:

400-700-3900

Wang Feng vs. Zhuo Wei-Defamation Case
Released on:2016-06-02
In Beijing Chaoyang Court on July 23, 2015, King and Capital attorneys Qin Qingfang and Yi Bei represented the famous Chinese singer Wang Feng is his defamation suit against “China’s first paparazzi” Zhuo Wei.

In his microblog earlier in the year, Wang Feng was forced to address the erroneous media article claiming he had been illegally gambling at a China Jiangsu Poker event. He publicly refuted the article but this did not satisfy Zhuo Wei who subsequently reported the alleged activity in his microblog along with unflattering statements about his famous actress wife Zhang Ziyi (Crouching Tiger star actress).

On behalf of Wang Feng, King & Capital filed a law suit against Zhuo Wei for spreading false statements without any due diligence causing humiliation and damage to his and his wife’s personal image and reputation. In the suit, Zhuo Wei was directed to delete the erroneous blog regarding Wang Feng’s alleged gambling activity, provide compensation totaling CNY 2 million and publish an apology.  

In his defense, Zhuo Wei stated that his blog was only re-iterating a number of other media stories that had already been made public, so the story was in the public domain. Arguing in defense of Wang Feng, Qin Qingfang stated that Zhuo Wei had made no attempt to determine if the media stories he had reported were in actual fact true and no link could be established between these media articles and Zhuo Wei’s offending blog. Jiangsu Poker is a legitimate event and one cannot draw a direct relationship between Jiangsu Poker and gambling.

As the two sides could not agree to mediation, the case was held over for sentencing.

King and Capital summarized the case by stating that according to the laws of China, accusing someone of the criminal act of gambling is slanderous and amounts to defamation and is not a normal character comment as characterized by Zhuo Wei. Given his tremendous media influence as an entertainment gossip columnist, Zhou Wei has a responsibility to make his comments on the basis of truth.