We have recently acted for a Mainland client in an arbitration at the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre and successfully won an award against various BVI and PRC respondents. The arbitration was to determine a pre-IPO investment dispute involving an investment amount of US$10,000,000. The arbitral tribunal was invited to rule on the broad questions as to whether the redemption right under an investment agreement had been properly exercised and whether the guarantors are liable for the principal debtor’s non-compliance with the redemption request. Parties were engaged in extensive arguments over various technical legal issues including applicability of court pleading rules in arbitration proceedings, estoppel, legal construction on “delivery”, “completion” and “listing”, applicability of the common law principles of reasonable time and nature of guarantee and indemnity obligations. With great pleasure, the arbitral tribunal ruled in favour of our client on liability, and found that the redemption right was exercised properly and in time. The principal debtor shall be responsible for its failure to redeem the subject shares and a guarantor is jointly liable for such default.

The case was handled by our litigation partner Mr. Roy Leung and our litigation associate Mr. Alan So. The arbitration was conducted in Chinese and Putonghua.