Dear friends, Thank you very much for your attention. Let me continue this true story.
After one week's intensive fighting, talking and negotiating with parties sitting in diferent time. all parties felt exhausted. So all of us stop talking this matter for one day. Actaully we only have four days left if we minus weekend.During the weekend, we stopped talking with other parties, our client, American lawyer and I kept on talking how to take next step and what risk we would run. We realize that it is difficult to let Company B cooperate with us. Russian company have not good reputation in the world. So we tried to solve this matter without Company B. Actaully, the consignee of this arrested cargo, Company A still kept the purchase price and they wished to get the cargo. Then, we were trying to persuade Company A to pay the purchase the price to the court, then they could let the cargo leave. Company A obviously dared not to do like that. Because Company B declared that the arrested cargo's title had been transferred to Company A. Company B had carried out his obligation to deliver the cargo. Company A should pay the purchase price to Company B and should fight with Company D on the title of the cargon in Chinese court. Company B's declaration affected Company A's decision. As the same time, Company A had to face their following clients who had contracts with Company A on the arrested cargo. Company A did not wish to breach these contracts to ruin their very good reputation. Company A was in a real dilemma.
For our client's part, Company D was to have a gurantee before we lift the arrest from any party who will pay us in future as long as we win the case with Company B. We did not wish to occupy the arrested cargo. It means more loss and more risks if the arrested cargo stayed under the arrest longer. We knew it clearly which the title of the cargo was transfered to Company A after Company A submitted their sale contract with Company B and the Bill of lading which shows Company A is the consignee. If Company A retained a Chinese lawyer to defend with wrongful arrest, our client would probably lose the case. The only one point we may refer to is that Comany A will face big loss because they could not deliver the cargo to those next buyers. And Company A still had not paid the purchase price. As a matter of fact, Company A did not have loss at that time. So we decided to bet on the Company A.
We strongly suggested Copmany A to retain a Chinese lawyer to talk with us directly. And we told Company A which we would made motion to auction the arrested cargo immediately since the arrested cargo wasn't suitable to preserve. It seemingly worked. Company A retained a Chinese lawyer to talk with us. The Chinese lawyer is just my student whom I taught in university. The talk between two Chinese lawyers is much easier than talking with foreign lawyers and clients. We got to know that Company A tried to best to lift the arrest by all means. Firstly, they wish to persuade the court to believe that they made a wrongful arrest and lift the arrrest immediately. Secondly, if it could not work. they might consdier to lift the arrest with lowest price. It is just what we supposed. Our intention was to push Company A to retain a Chinese lawyer to show their position in the court. Then we would ask the court to deliver a notice to let the Company A to pay the purchase price to the court. After that, we may lift the arrest on the cargo. While the Company A's lawyer appeared in the court with fax version POA, the court did not accept it.There was only no more one day left onr the liner departure for Europe. Company A seemed not have other choice if they wished to have the arrested cargo. Then Company A started intensive talk with our client on condition to lift tje arrest. Our client realized our risks too. So they also made some compromise on the condition to lift the arrest. Finally, our client accepted a Guarantee agreement with Company A which Company A will keep the purchase price which is equal to the principal of the credit between our client and Company B till the case between B and D ends someday. They will pay the purchase price to the final winner of the case. And Company A will not go after Company D's any liability on arrest of the cargo in China. All these terms will be effective after the arrested cargo were lifted and caught the liner of next day. After we got this agreement, we tried to push the agent of Company A to get through all formalities to ship and leave for Europe. While at the last minute we must lift the arrest order, we applied the court to send lift arrest order to the container terminal. After all parties' effort, the arrested cargo finally left SH for Europe in time. Our client got the effective Guarantee Letter from Company A. An exciting arrest on cross-border cargo got an happy ending.
After that, we finally caught a breath. It is a real home run. We are so glad that we almost reached our goal.
Thank you for your reading. Hopefully you finally read the end with interest.
Dove
