Sany to go all out in US lawsuit

CHINA'S Sany Group stressed it is determined in its judiciary action against US President Barack Obama, a company spokesman said yesterday.

Sany will persist in the lawsuit to the end and will appeal to the circuit court or the supreme court of the United States if necessary, the group's media official Yang Jian said.

Yang said initial results had been achieved in the case in which the company's US-based subsidiary Ralls Corp last year filed a complaint against Obama and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States for blocking it from owning four wind farms in Oregon.

According to a court order, Count IV of the amended complaint will not be dismissed. It alleges that the president's "order regarding the acquisition of four US wind farm project companies by Ralls Corporation" on September 28, 2012 violates the due process clause of the fifth amendment to the United States Constitution by depriving Ralls of property without providing adequate opportunity to be heard or an adequate explanation of the reasons for the decision.

The ruling, which dismissed other counts of the complaint, said the plaintiff's opposition will be due before March 28 and defendants' reply will be due before April 4.

The lawsuit by Sany, China's largest machinery maker, seemed just to have a 20 percent possibility of success, but was a 100 percent victory, said Hao Junbo, a multinational litigation and claim expert.

The case was an important breakthrough for Chinese enterprises to win international an opinion, according to Zhang Guoqing, a professor in American studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Chinese firms used to be reluctant to protect their own interests in case they face unfair treatment in the US, so Sany's efforts set a good example in using the laws of foreign countries, said Zhang.

As more Chinese companies invest abroad, they face growing frictions involving intellectual property rights or protectionism. Some succeeded in protecting themselves by judiciary means.

Aokang Group Co Ltd, China's leading shoemaker, won a lawsuit against European Union anti-dumping measures on Chinese leather shoes in November last year. Aokang was one of the five affected shoemakers, but the only firm which decided to go through the appeal process after their first lawsuit was objected in 2010.

In another case, Huawei Technologies Co Ltd won a lawsuit against Motorola and Nokia Siemens Networks in a US court in 2011.

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