A Spanish Subcontractor Lost the Case against a Chinese EPC Contractor and Paid for the Latter's Arbitration Costs
2023-03-23
This was a milestone victory in international arbitration cases involving Chinese engineering constructors. With the assistance of Chinese lawyers, the case result was completely reversed, all the arbitration claims of the Spanish company rejected, with a complete victory for the Chinese contractor, and finally the Spanish company was made pay the arbitration fees and lawyer's fees for the Chinese company.
Case summary:
In early 2019, a Chinese company participated in a bid for a large photovoltaic power generation project in the Middle East, and invited a Spanish company which it had worked with before, to bid together as a subcontractor, and designated its overseas employees to communicate with the Spanish company over the bidding matters. After negotiation, the two parties signed a letter of intent, agreeing that if the Chinese company won the bid for the EPC project, it would exclusively subcontract all on-site construction work and local procurement to the Spanish company, and at the price agreed by both parties during the bidding period.
On November 4, 2022, the London Court of International Arbitration issued an arbitral award, rejecting all the arbitration claims of the Spanish company and ordering the claimant to pay the Chinese party’s arbitration costs and attorney's fees in an arbitration case in which the Spanish subcontractor claimed RMB 110 million in damages against the Chinese EPC contractor. On March 22, 2023, thanks to the relentless effort of DeHeng Chinese lawyers, the Spanish company paid the arbitration fees and legal fees in one lump sum.
To sum up, the Spanish company tried to embarrass the Chinese EPC contractor in various ways, and finally initiated arbitration in London Court of International Arbitration to claim RMB 110 million in compensation, and finally completely lost the case, after the arduous and excellent work by the DeHeng Chinese legal team.
