A Chinese distant-water fishing company has made a HKD 5.8 million (USD 739,000, EUR 628,000) payment to preempt an upcoming court ruling on whether to wind the company up.
Fishing company China Ocean Group Development made the payment after an arbitration court in Hong Kong made a ruling last year in favor of a government-owned conglomerate that purchased bonds in the firm. The payment covers legal and other fees incurred in the arbitration process, and interest was added to the original HKD 5 million (USD 637,000, EUR 542,000) figure.
China Ocean Executive Director and Chair Liu Rongsheng wrote to investors recently to inform them the company had made the payment.
“The company has paid the amount which represents the legal fees and other expenses and disbursement relating to the arbitration, together with all related interest,” he said. “Therefore, the claim amount of the petition is fully settled.”
This was not the company’s first time in arbitration court.
In July 2021, COFCO, a state-owned conglomerate and one of China’s leading agricultural food processors, commenced arbitration proceedings with the Hong Kong arbitration court against China Ocean and its executives. The case, which took three years to reach a judgment, centered on convertible bonds issued to COFCO, which later converted them into shares in China Ocean.
The arbitral judgment issued found that China Ocean breached the subscription agreement under which the bonds were issued to COFCO and later converted to shares.
Even before those two judgments, in 2022, China Ocean Group claimed it had entered a joint venture with Indonesian fishing firm PT Kanzun Bahiriyah Sentosa to fish in Indonesian waters, but Kanzun later denied that claim.
Further back than that, in 2020, it issued a statement via the Hong Kong Stock Exchange indicating it had signed a memorandum of understanding with Mercado Común Del Sur (Mercosur) to build a pelagic fishery base in Ecuador. However, Mercosur denied knowledge of any agreement, and China Ocean ultimately never developed an Ecuadorian base.
