Masks Sold Without CE, Landing Lawyer Recover Over $110,000 for Irish Client Through Mediation

In March 2020, demand for masks was so high around the world. An Irish company purchased masks at nearly hundreds of thousands of dollars from a company in Xiamen, China.

Before signing the contract, the Chinese supplier assured on oath that all models of masks they produced had CE certifications and the company's official website had various certificates, such as CE and FDA, indicating that the masks could be sold legally.

As a result, the Irish client signed an agreement with the Chinese supplier, paid hundreds of thousands of dollars and sold the masks to other customers after receiving different batches of masks.

However, the Irish client was soon informed by the UK government that the masks they were selling had faulty CE marks and that they were to stop selling them. Upon learning of this, the Irish client immediately contacted the Chinese supplier, only to learn that the Chinese supplier had deliberately concealed the invalid CE certificate and made repeated excuses, refusing for compensation.

The Irish client then approached lawyers Larry Zhou and Linda Wu of Landing (Shenzhen) Law Office.

The difficulties in this case were :

1、The complexity of laws. The different quality standards for masks in China and the EU, the reason for the invalid CE certificate issued by the supplier in relation to the Brexit, the emergency legislative proposals issued by the EU in response to the outbreak of the epidemic, the specific regulations for masks in the EU, the inspection standards and procedures for masks during special periods, etc.

2、The Irish client had sold masks to different countries and at low prices, making the case complex and full of data.

However, in a responsible manner to the client, our lawyers were able to gain an in-depth and comprehensive understanding of the case and reviewed numerous materials, including Chinese legal regulations, EU regulations and legislative proposals, UK regulations, etc., to develop a comprehensive litigation strategy for our Irish client.

Importantly, before filing the case with the Chinese court, our lawyers were able to obtain clues about the assets of Chinese supplier through investigation, grasp the timing of the case and communicate with the judge in a timely manner to successfully freeze the money equal to our claim in the bank account of the Chinese supplier.

What’s more, after the case was filed, our lawyers also kept an eye on the company's operation and successfully prevented the cancellation of the Hong Kong company of one of the opposing parties by raising objections to the Hong Kong government when the company applied for cancellation.

Following the aggressive actions taken by Larry and Linda of Landing Law Office, the Chinese supplier was faced with the dilemma of having his assets frozen and being prevented from writing off his company. Coupled with the professional and well-prepared performance of our lawyers at the trial, the defendants and the opposing counsel felt more pressure and approached us to offer mediation.

After several rounds of communication, our lawyers successfully assisted the Irish client and the supplier to reach a mediation proposal. The client was very satisfied with the proactive, professional and patient approach shown by our lawyers in this case.