Successful defence of a major Chinese company in a state commercial court

The team of the Far East Office successfully defended a major Chinese shipbuilding company before a sate commercial court in a dispute with a Russian counterpart. The Russian party acting as the client under a contractor agreement to repair a sea vessel sought to collect multi-million penalties and losses without a reasonable ground.

Natalia Prisekina, Partner, and Victoria Krupina, Senior Associate, working effectively together with Chinese lawyers from Beijing Yinghong Law Firm developed a defence strategy that justifies changes to the performance timelines referring to the scope of work being increased significantly by follow-up requests from the client. They also arranged for additional documents to be put together to evidence the onset of force majeure circumstances in the form of measures introduced pursuant to legal acts of state authorities of the People’s Republic of China to prevent the spread of the coronavirus infection.

Thus, the lawyers managed to persuade the court that there were no grounds for holding the Chinese company liable in connection with its performance under the contract.