We advised a leading Chinese new energy company in achieving a complete victory in a series of cross-border arbitrations against a South Korean high-end equipment supplier.
On December 15, 2025, Jincheng Tongda & Neal (JT&N) successfully represented a leading Chinese new energy enterprise in two related cross-border arbitration cases involving the purchase of key production equipment for new energy batteries from a South Korean manufacturer. The disputes, with a total value exceeding CNY 100 million, centered on whether the conditions for final payment were met.
In the first arbitration, the JT&N team persuaded the arbitral tribunal to uphold the Chinese buyer’s claims that conditions for the final payment were not met due to the supplier’s delivery of defective equipment and delay in repair, resulting in a substantial damages award and the dismissal of all counterclaims filed by the South Korean supplier. In a second arbitration initiated by the supplier approximately one year later, the tribunal dismissed all claims, finding again that the conditions for final payment were not met and that the supplier’s attempts to assert “acceptance of equipment” lacked factual support..
The JT&N team navigated the technical complexities of the disputes by working closely with the client’s technical department to translate intricate engineering issues into clear legal arguments. The team successfully applied the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (“CISG”) in conjunction with Chinese contract law principles and protected the client’s rights by focusing on the right issue in both arbitrations. . The JT&N team employed various visual tools to help the arbitral tribunal understand the underlying technical facts and ruled in the client’s favor.
The Jincheng Tongda & Neal team included senior partners Annie (Guohua) Wu and Ping Zhao, partner Jason (Yingnan) Li, and associates Suoyu Sun and Jenny (Ying) Zeng. Members of the JT&N team are based in the firm’s Beijing and Shanghai offices.