Being sued by a listed company, shareholders complain about the stock price drop in their posts | Cloud Network | Listed Company
Red Star Capital Bureau reported on August 10th that recently, the Jiading District People's Court in Shanghai announced ten typical cases of the digital economy in the Yangtze River Delta. Among them, the case of listed company Zhongke Yunwang suing a certain information company and three shareholders for network infringement liability dispute was announced.
Due to the decline in stock prices, two investors spoke in a stock bar on a website, expressing dissatisfaction with the stock prices of Zhongke Yunwang. Later, they were sued by Zhongke Yunwang, believing that they were fabricating facts for defamation. After trial, the court ruled that Zhongke Cloud Network lost the lawsuit, and the actions of the shareholders do not constitute infringement.
It is reported that the plaintiff in this case is Zhongke Yunwang, and there are multiple defendants, among which a certain information company is the operator of a well-known financial and securities portal website. The website has a stock bar section, which is an online social platform for netizens to exchange stock information and share personal experiences.
Due to the continuous decline in the stock price of the plaintiff Zhongke Yunwang, netizens such as Lv and Feng spoke in a stock bar named after Zhongke Yunwang, expressing their dissatisfaction with the stock price of Zhongke Yunwang. The plaintiff believes that the more than ten statements made by Xie, Lv, and Feng in the stock bar, such as "Tomorrow's limit down, no one can run" and "When bad news strikes, prepare well and start diving", are fabricating facts to defame the plaintiff, while also insulting the actual controller and legal representative of the company and hyping up the plaintiff's stock price. As the management of the stock bar, a certain information company should also bear responsibility for its failure to fulfill reasonable regulatory care obligations. Zhongke Yunwang then sued the court, demanding that each defendant stop infringing, apologize and compensate for the losses.
After trial, the Jiading Court found that Xie was not the actual user of the account in question, and therefore there was no infringement. The defendant, an information company, is not the direct publisher, editor, or recommender of the remarks involved in the case. At the time of user registration, they have reminded users to use civilized language and speak rationally through website service usage agreements and community management regulations, and have fulfilled reasonable "reminder obligations" in advance. After the plaintiff filed a lawsuit, a certain information company has promptly taken necessary measures such as deleting the relevant information of the litigation topic post in accordance with the requirements of the lawsuit, and provided the registration information of the involved account, fulfilling the reasonable service, management, and assistance obligations of the network service provider, so there is no need to assume responsibility.
As for the statements made by Lv and Feng, the court believes that the two individuals made evaluations and expressed dissatisfaction with the plaintiff and their stocks based on the continuous decline in stock prices, and did not intend to fabricate facts or maliciously defame them. Moreover, Lv and Feng are only ordinary internet users, with very few registered account followers and followers. Other netizens, based on the perspective of normal rational individuals, will not blindly follow such emotional comments. As a listed company, the plaintiff should have a greater tolerance for the evaluation comments made by shareholders due to lack of professional knowledge and difficulty in avoiding subjective emotions. If there is indeed exaggeration or falsehood in some of the language used, the plaintiff may also be made aware of it through public announcements or other means.
Based on this, the court believes that the statements of Lv and Feng are indeed inappropriate and should be seriously criticized, but have not yet reached the level of reducing the plaintiff's social evaluation and infringing on the plaintiff's reputation rights. The final judgment rejects all the plaintiff's litigation requests.
According to public information, Red Star Capital Bureau has learned that Zhongke Cloud Network is known as the "Cross border King" in the industry. Its predecessor was the catering enterprise Xiang'eqing. Since 2014, the company has been seeking transformation multiple times. In 2014, the company has transformed into big data and new media fields, and changed its name from "Xiang'eqing" to "Zhongke Cloud Network". Since then, Zhongke Cloud Network has also tried multiple industries such as environmental protection, film and television, and robotics, but mostly failed. In 2015, the company's "ST Xiang'e Bond" defaulted and was "capped" for two consecutive years of losses.
Later, Zhongke Cloud also took a fancy to the booming game industry. In 2020, it successively acquired two Internet game business companies. This time, it finally seized the opportunity, and games became the company's second business after catering.
Based on its past performance, in the past five years, Zhongke Cloud Network has experienced losses in 2019, 2020, 2022, and the first half of 2023. On July 14th, Zhongke Cloud Network announced that the company expects to achieve operating revenue of RMB 110 million to RMB 120 million and a net loss of RMB 80-100 million in the first half of the year.
