The Changning Court received letters of thanks and banners from Russian companies after the verdict. A Shanghai travel agency owed millions of yuan to Russian companies.
This afternoon, the Shanghai Changning District People's Court held a press conference to release version 7.0 of the implementation plan for promoting the construction of a legalized business environment and typical cases of the legalized business environment in 2023. Among them, after the conclusion of a service contract dispute case between a Russian company and an international travel agency in Shanghai, the plaintiff, the Russian company, sent a letter of thanks and a banner to the Changning Court to express its gratitude for the fairness and efficiency of the Chinese judiciary.
According to the Changning Court, the plaintiff, a Russian company, and a travel agency in Shanghai have started cross-border tourism cooperation in 2015. The travel agency is responsible for organizing domestic tourists to travel to Russia, and the plaintiff, as a ground agency, is responsible for the tourists' itinerary, food and accommodation during their stay in Russia. In 2018, the two parties continued their cooperative relationship as usual and signed a minimalist version of the contract. After the contract was performed, the plaintiff repeatedly urged, but a Shanghai travel agency has yet to settle the service fee. The plaintiff then filed a lawsuit in Changning Court, requesting an order to order a Shanghai travel agency to pay principal and interest in travel service fees totaling more than 9.66 million yuan.
After accepting the case, the collegial panel found that the case had difficulties such as vague contract terms, lack of settlement standards for service payments, confusing vouchers for paid payments, and difficulty in obtaining evidence from outside the country. Taking into account the poor operating conditions of the parties in recent years, in order to relieve their financial pressure as soon as possible, the collegial panel decided to speed up the trial after many discussions and reviews.
First, after sorting out the evidence, the collegial panel conducted a reconciliation using a price list to which neither party had any objection as the main basis for reconciliation. Then, 7 pre-trial meetings were organized and held to fix the facts and calculation standards recognized by both parties and minimize the scope of the dispute. After that, the cost determination standards for the disputed items were clarified, and the settlement standards and reasons for the 35 dispute points were analyzed one by one. Finally, calculate the service fees month by month, group by group, and item by item.
After deducting the portion that neither party had objections to, the Changning Court finally ordered the defendant, a Shanghai travel agency, to pay the plaintiff more than 4 million yuan in arrears and corresponding interest losses. At the same time, considering that the plaintiff, as a foreign enterprise, faced practical difficulties in producing evidence, the collegial panel retained its right to litigate for some items for which it was still possible to produce evidence.
The court of second instance upheld the judgment and the case is now in effect.
