DeHeng Successfully Defends Fishery Mutual Insurance Association
in the Second-instance of the Provincial People's High Court
2020-02-19
Recently, regarding a case on disputes over the mutual insurance contract, which claimed by the plaintiff Mr. Lin against the defendant Fujian Fishery Mutual Insurance Association (hereinafter referred to as 'Association'), DeHeng received the second-instance judgment from a provincial people's higher court. The court of second-instance threw out the appeal and upheld the original judgment, i.e. the Association shall not bear the liability to indemnify the plaintiff.
Case summary: Mr. Lin subscribed for the mutual insurance for his fishing vessels in coastal inland rivers from the Association. On May 1, 2018, China entered into fishing ban. However, during the fishing ban, Mr. Lin sailed his fishing boat out, which later collided with a merchant ship. As a result, Mr. Lin suffered losses and he filed a claim against the Association. After looking into Mr. Lin's claim, the Association rejected the claim on the ground that Mr. Lin has violated the fishing ban policy. Afterwards, Mr. Lin filed a lawsuit against the Association in a maritime court. After being sued, the Association and its superior administrative department — the Ocean and Fisheries Administration of Province A attached great importance to the matter and decided to engage professional lawyers to handle the case.
After being engaged by the Association, DeHeng put together a project team headed by Peng Xianwei, partner of its Beijing office, and Wu Yanan, Ni Huanhuan etc., main participant lawyers, to look into the case. DeHeng lawyers meticulously combed and analyzed facts of the case with the Association's leaders, as well as related claim handling and underwriting personnel. Meanwhile, lawyers of the project team also carried out detailed study to the legal issues of the case. Since cases on disputes over mutual insurance contracts relevant to fishery were rare, lawyers of the project team conducted detailed legal research, digging into the nature of the legal relationship and law application of such kind of case, putting a great deal of effort in collecting evidence. Thanks to the efforts between DeHeng and the Association, the court of first and second instance both recognized the arguments stated by DeHeng and threw out the defendant's claim.
After winning the case, the client highly praised DeHeng's professionalism and deemed that the case not only protected their legitimate rights and interests, but also protected China's fishery resources and maintained the solemnity of China's fishing ban policy, which would be instructive and meaningful to other similar cases. The Association has planned to invite DeHeng lawyers to share this typical case as a model in a forthcoming provincial claim handling meeting.
