In October 2018, with the last sum of settlement fees paid, a Hong Kong arbitration case over an international trade dispute, which DeHeng was retained by a British client to handle, was smoothly concluded.
Acting for the said British client, a DeHeng team led by DeHeng Beijing Office partner Peng Xianwei, including lawyer Wu Ya'nan, carefully studied the contract which the buyer and the seller had signed, and sent to the buyer a lawyer's letter urging the buyer to fulfill its obligations under the contract. As the buyer failed to reply to the letter, the client asked the project team to file arbitration with the Hong Kong International Arbitration Center ("HKIAC") on its behalf. The project team then drafted an arbitration application in English and presented it, together with related evidence, to the HKIAC. The buyer engaged a well-known Hong Kong law firm to act on its behalf, and submitted a written reply to the arbitrator. After multiple rounds of negotiations between both parties' lawyers, the two disputing parties entered into a settlement agreement, with the buyer agreeing to pay settlement fees by installments. When the last installment was paid in October 2018, the case was smoothly closed.
DeHeng lawyers have in recent years successfully acted for clients in many cross-border disputes and protected their legal rights and interests in international trade. This case represents one more international arbitration case that lawyer Peng Xianwei and Wu Ya'nan won for the client following their successful defense in Hong Kong in a seed deal dispute filed with the International Chamber of Commerce ("ICC") in 2017.
Case Description:
In February 2017, a client (an ore trader, the seller) of DeHeng signed a purchase contract with the buyer, under which the seller was to sell 20,000 tons of chrome ore (Cr203) to the buyer. After signing, the market price of ore slumped by more than half from the originally agreed price, so the buyer failed to issue a letter of credit at the specified time.