Lawyer: Proview owes the agency fee of $2 million.
Xie Xianghui, a lawyer of Guo Hao Law Firm, has always been one of the lawyers representing Shenzhen Proview in the iPad trademark case. Because Proview failed to pay the lawyer's fee as agreed in the contract after receiving the settlement, Guo Hao Law Firm took Proview to court.
Xie Xianghui said: "I didn't expect this result." When becoming the agent of Shenzhen Proview, Guo Hao Law Firm signed an agency contract with Shenzhen Wei as a risk agent. According to the contract, after the lawsuit is over and the income is obtained, the lawyer's agency fee will be charged according to the proportion of the income. Xie Xianghui revealed that according to the agreement, Guo Hao has the right to get 2 million US dollars (equivalent to 65.438+million RMB) from Proview.
"Our agreement at that time was to pay the lawyer's fee as soon as we got the compensation or settlement. Unexpectedly, from the end of June to now, the settlement money has been collected for so long, and Proview has not paid the lawyer's fee. We think this is really bad. " Xie Xianghui said that in law, cases with relatively small amounts will go through the hands of lawyers and directly deduct the lawyer's fees. However, because the settlement amount is large and supervised by the court, there is no direct deduction. However, the money is already in Proview's account. According to the contract, Proview should pay the lawyer's fee immediately. In addition, Guo Hao paid Proview's customs filing fee and evidence purchase fee, but they were not repaid.
Proview: Priority creditors may have opinions.
According to Sina Technology, Yang Rongshan, the founder of Shenzhen Proview, explained that if Shenzhen Proview operates normally, the lawyer's fee may be paid first, but Proview is not operating normally, and creditors may have opinions. He stressed that the court will handle it according to the law, and Proview will not "shuffle".
Xie Xianghui disagrees with this statement. He said that $60 million had reached Proview's account, but Proview's assets were frozen and the court supervised its assets, so Proview could not handle the property. However, Proview can completely apply to the court, pay the lawyer's fee first and then distribute other assets. The so-called "other creditors disagree", Xie Xianghui believes that when the contract was signed with Proview, the creditors knew and agreed. The voice of the economy, Tianxia Company, interviewed Xie Xianghui, a lawyer from Guo Hao who participated in the iPad trademark case, and he confirmed the truth of the news to us. And said that Guo Hao Law Firm signed a risk agency contract with Shenzhen Proview, and Proview should give them priority in paying legal fees at the first time:
Xie Xianghui: When 20 10 represented Shenzhen Proview, all the assets of Shenzhen Proview were actually sealed up by the eight big banks, so Shenzhen Proview had no money. In this case, after analyzing this case, we think that Shenzhen Proview is reasonable. We express our willingness to act as a free agent, which is a risk agent in law. In other words, we will help him defend his rights at our own expense. If we win, we will get a commission. If we lose, we will be risk agents and won't receive a penny. At that time, the Bank of China agreed as a creditor. This contract was approved by them and reported to them for the record, so it was agreed that our proportion would be after winning the case.
Not long ago, the trademark case of iPad in China, which has been troubled for two years, was finally settled. Apple paid $60 million to formally reach a settlement with Shenzhen Proview. It is understood that the entrustment contract signed by Guo Hao Law Firm and Shenzhen Proview stipulates that Guo Hao has the right to collect 4% of the total settlement. According to the settlement of $60 million, Shenzhen Proview needs to pay about $2.4 million to Guo Hao, which is about 6.5438+0.5 million yuan in legal fees.
However, after Shenzhen Proview received a settlement of $60 million at the end of last month, it delayed paying the lawyer's fees. Xie Xianghui revealed that in addition to legal fees, Guo Hao Law Firm also paid some legal fees for Proview in the course of litigation, and these fees should also be returned to Proview:
Xie Xianghui: According to the practice of the lawyer industry, in fact, this $60 million should be deducted from our lawyer's fees first, and the rest is the income of Shenzhen Proview. But the money was later transferred to the account of Shenzhen Proview, and Shenzhen Proview was transferred to the account. We asked him to pay the risk lawyer's fees, including the fees we paid in advance. In fact, his lawyer's fees, trademark renewal fees and customs filing fees were all paid by us, but he did not give them. If we pay him, he should pay us back, and our lawyer's fees will be paid in proportion. According to the laws of our country, the Ministry of Justice stipulates that the agency fee he will give us is about 4%, which is a relatively low, not very high standard.
In order to understand the situation more comprehensively, we also called Yang Rongshan, the founder of Shenzhen Proview, and asked him what the dispute between Proview and Guo Hao Law Firm was. Yang Rongshan said that the settlement money obtained by Proview has been handed over to the court, and Guo Hao Law Firm should go to the court to ask for money:
Yang Rongshan: This money was allocated to the court in the court. Proview will not have any objection to this distribution. If it is a priority, it should be a priority. What should not be given priority should not be given priority. All respects the court's handling. I think as lawyers, they are very clear about the whole story. I personally can't understand what they did today, because their communication channels with the court are also very smooth. I feel a bit like using the media to hype this matter.
Lawyer Xie Xianghui said that they always wanted to communicate with Shenzhen Proview Company and Yang Rongshan himself, but they didn't get a response. He said that at the beginning, Guo Hao Law Firm helped Proview to file a lawsuit because they believed in this honest enterprise, but he began to doubt whether Proview still had integrity.
Xie Xianghui: We chose him at that time. After we received the money, we asked him to give it to us and sent him a letter. Then he refused to reply and invited him to meet. He also refused to meet Yang Rongshan. Of course, he has many reasons, and I believe he will tell the media, but we think this is a sign of insincerity. In the past, we firmly believed that Shenzhen Proview was an honest enterprise. I doubt his integrity. If you don't want to handle the contract entrustment agreement with a lawyer, the integrity standard of this enterprise should be very low, or it is simply unqualified on the issue of integrity.
Yang Rongshan, on the other hand, said that his communication with Guo Hao Law Firm was unimpeded. The other party has been using the media to hype and create their own popularity. Guo Hao turned to the media again, just trying to put pressure on the court through hype:
Yang Rongshan: There was no problem in signing the agency agreement. We never denied it. We did not say that we would not pay him. There's the money. You should go to court. Why did you turn to the media? Is this an incorrect practice? Their rights protection team forced the media to hype all the way and make their own popularity. What they used to do was to speculate there, and our communication was smooth. This is a very interesting thing. He is putting pressure on the court.
According to reports, Yang Rongshan has another explanation for Proview's delay in paying lawyer's fees. If Shenzhen Proview is a normal company, the lawyer's fee may be paid first. However, Proview did not operate normally. If the lawyer's fee is paid first, Proview's creditors may have an opinion. Xie Xianghui said that this statement lacks legal common sense. Whether according to lawyers' practice or national laws, their lawyer fees should be given priority:
Xie Xianghui: First, he has not gone through bankruptcy proceedings. In fact, his company is independent according to law, and he doesn't need the consent of creditors. Second, we signed the entrustment contract at that time, and China Bank, as his largest creditor bank at that time and the chairman of the bank's creditors, also agreed, and the bank would not disagree with his payment, because everyone signed the contract and the money had to be paid in black and white. Third, in fact, his income was created by the lawyer's rights protection team. At that time, Apple only lost 654.38 million +0 million in the first instance. After two years of litigation, through our efforts, Apple finally lost 380 million. This is all earned by the human, material and financial resources paid by the rights protection team. For us, it is a kind of labor remuneration, which is different from what he calls ordinary creditor's rights. The company should act according to the contract.
According to lawyer Xie Xianghui, the case of Guo Hao Law Firm suing Proview has been accepted by Shenzhen court, but it has not been filed.