① Ma Xianfeng worked for Zheng Bang for only three months in 2021, but he claimed 1.56 billion yuan from ST Zhengbang on commercial infringement, etc. ② related lawsuits have been filed many times, *ST Zhengbang is expected to have little impact on the company's production and operation.
Financial News Agency, December 1 (Reporters Liu Jian and Wang Ping An) *ST Zhengbang (002157.SZ) restructuring plan is progressing as scheduled, but recently the company has once again been involved in a lawsuit. Interestingly, the plaintiff this time was not a creditor of*ST Zhengbang, but a series of appeals, “followed” from Guangxi to Nanchang, Jiangxi, and repeatedly added the amount of the claim. It was only a former employee who worked for the company for three months.
Yesterday evening, *ST Zhengbang announced that recently, the company received a “Notice of Response” from the Nanchang Intermediate People's Court of Jiangxi Province. Plaintiff Ma Xianfeng filed a lawsuit against the company and its subsidiaries, Jiangxi Zhengbang Breeding Co., Ltd., and Guangxi Zhengbang Guanglian Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Development Co., Ltd., due to trade secret infringement. The lawsuit amount was 1.56 billion yuan.
A reporter from the Financial Association News Agency noticed that the amount of this lawsuit is quite large, and that the plaintiff is a former employee of the company, which is actually quite rare. Ma Xianfeng was a former employee of Guangxi Zhengbang Guanglian Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Development Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of the company. His employment period was from March 2021 to June 2021.
It's only been three months since work, why is there a huge claim of 1.56 billion yuan? Ma Xianfeng believes that during his tenure, he discovered two projects through monthly meetings and other channels, was responsible for leading the project, and completed the core plan for the design project alone. The defendant had already adopted the cost improvement design project plan provided by the plaintiff. The plaintiff contended that the company had violated its trade secrets.
In response, Ma Xianfeng filed a lawsuit with the Nanchang Intermediate People's Court of Jiangxi Province against *ST Zhengbang and its subsidiaries, Jiangxi Zhengbang Breeding Co., Ltd., and Guangxi Zhengbang Guanglian Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Development Co., Ltd., and ordered the mixed company defendants 1, 2, and 3 to jointly pay 1.357 billion yuan in trade secret infringement costs, bear joint liability with each other, and prohibited the three defendants from continuing to use the two trade secrets, and pay the above expenses to calculate interest of 203 million yuan based on a one-year loan interest rate of 3.55%.
In fact, this is not the first time Ma Xianfeng has appealed to *ST Zhengbang. Prior to that, he had filed many arbitration appeals against *ST Zhengbang in Guangxi, and had filed arbitration and lawsuits totaling 1.83 million yuan on matters such as overtime pay, allotment of shares, year-end bonus losses, project commissions, and financial compensation during his tenure.
On May 25, 2022, the civil judgment handed down by the People's Court of Liangqing District, Nanning City, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region showed that Guangxi Zhengbang Guanglian Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Development Co., Ltd. paid 13,495 yuan in compensation for illegal termination of the labor relationship to the plaintiff Ma Xianfeng, and terminated the terms of the confidentiality agreement agreed between plaintiff Ma Xianfeng and defendant Guangxi Zhengbang Guanglian Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Development Co., Ltd. and its “Trade Secret Protection Contract”.
After the verdict in the first instance, Ma Xianfeng submitted a second trial to the Nanning Intermediate People's Court of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, and changed one appeal request in the first instance, “the three appellants paid for a project commission of 17.94 million yuan” to “the three appellants paid for the project's trade secret benefits of 697 million yuan and prohibited the three appellants from using the trade secrets of the two projects.” The Nanning Intermediate People's Court of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region held that Ma Xianfeng's project was not agreed upon in the contract, and there was no evidence that Ma Xianfeng's project had actually been implemented and obtained commercial benefits, so it claimed that Ma Xianfeng's project had actually been implemented and obtained commercial benefits. Not a labor dispute In terms of categories, Ma Xianfeng could make a different claim. In the end, his appeal was rejected, and the original sentence was upheld.
After the second trial in Guangxi, after a year, Ma Xianfeng went to Nanchang this time, and the claim amount was changed from the previous 1.83 million yuan to 1.56 billion yuan. However, perhaps based on the results of many previous rounds of litigation, *ST Zhengbang believes, “The case is currently being tried and will not affect the normal production and operation of the company; it is expected that the impact on the company will be small.”
According to public information, as of April 29, 2023, *ST Zhengbang and its holding subsidiaries have accumulated a total of RMB 6.999 billion in litigation and arbitration matters. From the previous disclosure of cumulative lawsuits and arbitration announcements to August 30, 2023, the company and its holding subsidiaries have added a total amount of RMB 2,408 billion relating to litigation and arbitration matters.