Three international commercial disputes on epidemic prevention goods solved by three lawyer‘s letters
Recently, David Li effectively helped his Chinese and American clients get several settlements on 3 international commercial disputes about mask production machine and protection suit. The clients expressed great satisfaction with this result.
1.With the help of the first lawyer’s letter, a U.S. company successfully got advance payment back.
A U.S. company that specializes in selling medical equipment approached David and told him it had found a supplier of fully automatic mask production machines on alibaba.com. After paying 50% of the advance payment according to the order, the Chinese side cannot deliver the goods according to the agreed date, and has repeatedly delayed the delivery date. On the one hand, the U.S. company doubts the production capacity of the supplier, and on the other hand, it cannot afford the huge cost of U.S. manpower and logistics.
After analysis of the whole case, David actively negotiated with the production company, and explained the local policy of work resumption to the U.S. buyer. Affected by the outbreak of the new virus, Chinese manufacturers cannot fully resume work. In addition, in view of the shortage of parts for mask production machines, they have been actively purchasing from related parts suppliers. After the completion of procurement, the complex mechanical equipment, the cooperation of thousands of parts, from the processing of mechanical parts, to the mechanical installation, electrical installation and program debugging, this is a very complex and long process, but limited by human and material resources, the output of equipment can not return to the normal status.
Finally, under the coordination of David, the Chinese company returned all the advance payment to the U.S. company the next day.
2.With the help of the second lawyer’s letter, a Chinese company successfully got advance payment back.
In early March,2020, a Chinese Ningbo medical equipment company purchased protection suits from a Turkish company. Subject to the order, the delivery of the relevant goods was divided to 3 batches, and the last delivery shall be completed by 23rd, March. In fact, Turkish company have repeatedly delayed the delivery due to product quality problems. Recently, Turkish government has introduced export control policy for protection suit due to its own epidemic situation. Turkish companies need special approval for export, so they cannot fulfill orders as agreed without approval from the government. In the delivery delay more than a month, Ningbo enterprise manager found David, hope to fix this problem with the help of lawyer.
After analysis of some relevant resources, David first drafted a lawyer’s letter based on the CISG, to urge the Turkish party to fulfil its obligations. One day later, the Turkish company entrusted its lawyer to send a letter back, claiming that the company was subject to the export control policy, which constitutes the force majeure stipulated in article 79 of CISG. Hence, this delay did not constitutes a breach of the contract, however, the Turkish company was willing to offer a full refund.
David advised Ningbo companies to accept refunds and persuaded the client to understand each other at this special time. Within a week, the client received the refund and was satisfied with the lawyer's service.
3. with the help of the third lawyer’s letter, a U.S. company successfully urged the delivery.
A U.S. company purchased a large number of mask machines from China, and chose an agent among several freight forwarders who promised to arrange the air transfer on March 25. The U.S. company paid more than 300 thousand yuan in full, including air freight fee, magnetic inspection fee, pick-up fee, insurance fee and bank handling fee. However, as of March 26, the goods of the American enterprise had not been shipped out. The American enterprise found lawyer li and hoped that the lawyer could coordinate the loading as soon as possible.
After being entrusted, David immediately sent a lawyer's letter to the forwarder requesting to book the earliest shipment, and at the same time, he called the forwarder in charge of the cargo transportation to get the information. The forwarder said that due to the outbreak of the new virus, the current air freight capacity is still in a low situation and the overall international air freight cost is relevantly high. The outbreak led to the suspension of a large number of flights, the shutdown of enterprises, and changes in the immigration control measures and import policies of some countries. As a result, a large number of cargo routes were suspended, the capacity of belly cabin cargo was greatly weakened, and warehouse is frequently more than full. In addition, the government now implements the policy of priority delivery of first class medical supplies. The mask machines purchased by American customers can only be considered as second class medical supplies and will be temporarily replaced.
While urging the shipping companies to deliver the goods as soon as possible, David also patiently explained to the American companies, saying that in special times, wait a while, do not rush to terminate the commission. Finally, the goods arrived in Chicago on March 28, 2020.
Spoke of quickly solving three cases, David said, in addition to good luck, uphold the goodwill is very important for the lawyer to negotiate. When the lawyer communicates with the other party, it is important to avoid being too aggressive, to understand the special period of each other's difficulties, to make the necessary compromises, to be patient to explain to the customer and to avoid unreasonable expectations. For example, the American customer in the first case said that he could not receive the mask machine on time, and the profit loss was very large every day, so he would claim compensation. The client dropped the idea after Mr. Li explained the rule of no relief for consequential loss under Chinese law.
