On the morning of May 31, 2019, the First International Commercial Court of the Supreme People's Court of China held a public hearing in Shenzhen concerning the product liability dispute between Guangdong Bencao Medicine Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter as "Bencao"), and the defendant Bruschettini S.R.L., domiciled in Genoa, Italy (hereinafter as "Bruschettini") [the case number is (2019) ZuiGaoFaShangChu No.1].

The First International Commercial Court accepted this case in accordance with the Civil Procedure Law of the People's Republic of China, the Provisions of the Supreme People's Court on Several Issues Regarding the Establishment of the International Commercial Court, and the Procedural Rules for the China International Commercial Court of the Supreme People's Court and relevant judicial interpretations. This case is heard by a collegial panel of five China International Commercial Court("CICC") judges: Zhang Yongjian, Xi Xiangyang, Sun Xiangzhuang, Ding Guangyu and Shen Hongyu.

Previously, the collegial panel has held a pretrial conference on April 29, during which the panel explained the "one-stop" dispute resolution mechanism and related rules of the CICC to both parties and the parties determined relevant procedural matters. The hearing lasted for over 3 hours, and the parties fully debated on the following three issues: 

1) whether Bruschettini is obliged to recall the "Bacteria solutes" in dispute; if yes, whether Bruschettini constitutes inaction to recall the "Bacteria solutes" in dispute;

2) whether Bencao's waiver of claim for damages against Bruschettini agreed in the Exclusive Distribution Agreement and its Annex between Bencao and the non-party Aprontech can be excluded; 

3) whether Bruschettini shall compensate for Bencao's loss and how the amount of loss should be determined.

The court hearing has received extensive public attention. More than 40 people including representatives of the National People's Congress Qin Jianning, Liu Guangping, Zhang Zhiliang, and Cai Hua attended the hearing.

The court will render the judgement at a later date.

Related Links:

最高人民法院第一国际商事法庭首次公开开庭审理案件

*The original text is Chinese and has been translated into English for reference only. If there is any inconsistency or ambiguity between the Chinese version and the English version, the Chinese version shall prevail.