Adrian Liu · Case commentary
What Chinese Courts Decided: Judgments on Supplier Disputes, Contracts and Trademarks
First published · Updated
The judgments discussed in our case commentaries, in one table. For each one, you get the court, the case number and what was decided. The table is updated as new commentaries are published.
Published judgments
Paid, but no goods or refund
1 case
| Court, date and case number | What was decided |
|---|---|
| Jinan Shizhong District People’s Court, 18 June 2026(2026) Lu 0103 Min Chu No. 74 | A supplier took full payment of USD 114,800 for zinc ingots and shipped nothing. The refund was due only once the supplier’s own bank account was unblocked. The court treated that condition as met (Civil Code art. 159). It ordered the full refund with interest. No lawyer’s fees were awarded. The contract had no fee clause, and the buyer submitted no proof of payment. Read → |
Chat records and foreign documents
5 cases
| Court, date and case number | What was decided |
|---|---|
| Huidong County People’s Court, 8 February 2022(2021) Yue 1323 Min Chu No. 7566 | A claim for RMB 22,490 was dismissed in full. The seller had only printouts of WeChat chats and did not produce the originals when the court asked. Read → |
| Zhongshan No. 1 People’s Court, 30 June 2020(2020) Yue 2071 Min Chu No. 1176 | Claim dismissed. The WeChat contact was saved under a different name, and nothing linked it to the defendant. Read → |
| Hefei courts, first instance and appeal(2020) Wan 0111 Min Chu No. 14540; (2021) Wan 01 Min Zhong No. 1849 | The phone number on the WeChat contact card matched the buyer’s business registration form. The court accepted the chats and ordered RMB 151,048.22 plus interest. Read → |
| Beijing Chaoyang District People’s Court, 17 August 2020(2020) Jing 0105 Min Chu No. 29457 | A travel agency’s emails and letters in English came without Chinese translations. The court was not convinced the costs were lost, so RMB 6,075 had to be refunded. Read → |
| Tianjin No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court, 14 July 2020(2020) Jin 01 Min Zhong No. 2886 | An agency’s documents made in Greece needed no notarisation or embassy certification. They were neither official documents nor about personal status. Read → |
Quality, delivery and the factory
3 cases
| Court, date and case number | What was decided |
|---|---|
| Luohe, Xiaoshan and Foshan courts(2019) Yu 1104 Min Chu No. 365; (2019) Zhe 0109 Min Chu No. 1838; (2018) Yue 0604 Min Chu No. 27284 and (2019) Yue 06 Min Zhong No. 9826 | OEM factories make goods under a client’s brand. In these cases, the factories used the brand outside the orders or after the relationship ended. The courts held them liable. The awards were RMB 10,000, RMB 15,000 and RMB 30,000. The brand owner won all three cases, the Foshan one on appeal. Read → |
Contract terms that decide the case
9 cases
| Court, date and case number | What was decided |
|---|---|
| Zhongshan Intermediate People’s Court, 1 September 2023(2023) Yue 2072 Min Chu No. 5709; (2023) Yue 20 Min Zhong No. 5512 | A factory had promised not to deal with the trader’s customer. The courts enforced the promise, but cut the agreed RMB 300,000 to RMB 100,000. Read → |
| Shanghai Jing’an District People’s Court, 7 September 2021; Ningbo Jiangbei District People’s Court, 26 September 2016(2021) Hu 0106 Min Chu No. 26469; (2016) Zhe 0205 Min Chu No. 2213; (2016) Zhe 02 Min Zhong No. 3497 | The Shanghai court held that a non-circumvention letter stamped only by the factory bound it as a one-sided promise, though it was not a contract. In Ningbo the same template never became an agreement. The trading company had never signed back the version the Ningbo company had changed, so its EUR 445,200 claim failed at first instance. On appeal the parties settled, and the Ningbo company agreed to pay RMB 150,000. Read → |
| Supreme People’s Court, 13 December 2024(2024) Zui Gao Fa Zhi Min Zhong No. 350 | A clause stopped a producer from selling to its trader’s customers. The court held it void as a horizontal monopoly agreement, meaning one between competitors, that divided the market. Read → |
| Ningbo Intermediate Court, 29 January 2026(2025) Zhe 02 Min Zhong No. 7605 | The court upheld in full RMB 2,000,000 in liquidated damages, a sum fixed in the contract. The claim was for unauthorised third-party production under a trade mark licence. Read → |
| Anhui High Court, 22 April 2024(2024) Wan Min Shen No. 621 | The clause gave no figure. Retrial refused. The RMB 350,000 award stood, worked out as 30% of the buyer’s lowest selling price × 160 sets sold. Read → |
| Suzhou Intermediate Court, 26 November 2019(2019) Su 05 Min Zhong No. 4940 | RMB 1,000,000, the figure set for each breach, was upheld. The manufacturer never disclosed its own sales. Read → |
| Jingmen Intermediate Court, 27 August 2018(2017) E 08 Min Chu No. 47 | RMB 6,920,777 was claimed and RMB 120,000 awarded. The formula in the clause could not be applied, because no shared customer was proved. Read → |
| Qingdao Intermediate Court, 17 June 2019(2017) Lu 02 Min Chu No. 1428 | RMB 4.88 million was claimed and RMB 600,000 awarded. The loss was measured only on royalties actually paid. The judgment was later set aside after the parties settled ((2019) Zui Gao Fa Zhi Min Zhong No. 645). Read → |
| Shanghai Changning District Court, 25 June 2008(2008) Chang Min Er (Shang) Chu No. 112 | Claim dismissed. There was no proof that the customer had hired a second manufacturer. Read → |
Suing, time limits and enforcement
6 cases
| Court, date and case number | What was decided |
|---|---|
| Yantai Intermediate People’s Court(2017) Lu 06 Min Chu No. 382 | An application to enforce a US arbitration award was dismissed. The award named a company by an English name. The applicant could not prove that this was the Chinese company holding the assets. Read → |
| Beijing No. 4 Intermediate People’s Court(2020) Jing 04 Min Te No. 229 | An application to set aside, or cancel, a CIETAC award was refused. CIETAC is the China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission. The objection to the arbitration agreement was raised for the first time after the award. Read → |
| Chengdu Intermediate Court(2023) Chuan 01 Xie Wai Ren No. 15 | A Californian judgment carrying an apostille was accepted without embassy legalisation. Read → |
| Kunming Intermediate People’s Court, 28 November 2024(2024) Yun 0112 Min Chu No. 8920; (2024) Yun 01 Min Zhong No. 10913 | A US power of attorney carrying only an apostille was upheld. Legalisation was no longer required after 7 November 2023. Read → |
| Urumqi Intermediate People’s Court, 28 August 2025(2025) Xin 01 Min Zhong No. 3202 | An Uzbek seller’s claim was in time under the four-year limit for international sales. Its repeated demands, each within four years of the last, restarted the count. Read → |
| Zhongshan No. 1 People’s Court, 31 December 2024(2024) Yue 2071 Min Chu No. 7228 | A seller’s 2019 payment demand restarted the four-year limit. Its claim was filed with two days to spare. Read → |
Trademarks
1 case
| Court, date and case number | What was decided |
|---|---|
| Supreme People’s Court, 11 December 2023(2023) Jing Xing Zhong No. 5031; (2023) Zui Gao Fa Xing Shen No. 2567 | STAPLE: retrial refused. The Beijing High People’s Court had ruled against the brand owner on appeal. A pre-emptive filing is someone else registering your brand first. The reputation that blocks one has to exist in mainland China. Fame in New York did not count. Read → |
Matters we handled
In the table below, names, products, places, dates and amounts have been removed or changed. Some facts have been combined. Each entry describes one matter on its own facts. It does not predict the result of any other case.
| Lawyer | What happened |
|---|---|
| Handled by Adrian LiuCourt proceedings, anonymised | The contract called the start-up payment the first instalment of the price. The court treated it as part of the price. It ordered a refund with the compensation the contract set, but no double repayment and no interest on top. Read → |
| Handled by Adrian LiuCourt proceedings, anonymised | A brand paid for the molds of a product the factory had designed. The molds belonged to the brand. The design stayed with the factory. The exclusivity was in a middleman’s contract with the factory. The case settled through mediation during the lawsuit, and the settlement confirmed the brand owned the molds. Read → |
| Handled by Adrian LiuCourt proceedings, anonymised | A local company put a client’s brand into its company name and used it on signs, booking pages and listings. The court found trademark infringement and unfair competition. It set the damages and held the sole shareholder liable with the company. Read → |
| Handled by Adrian LiuCourt proceedings, anonymised | A supplier stopped shipping after taking prepayments. The court ordered the undelivered part returned with interest. The amount was the payments proved, less the deliveries both sides accepted. Read → |
June Zhang’s published case commentary
Xiamen Siming District People’s Court, 2026. June Zhang handled the case. A spouse said large transfers to a third party were invalid gifts of marital property. The court dismissed the claim, because the alleged gifts were not proved. The case number is public, but the parties are not named. Read →
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Case commentary on published PRC judgments and anonymised matters. It is general information. It is not advice on a particular dispute. No outcome is predicted or guaranteed.