Packaging / Advertising & Office

As the saying goes, peers are enemies, which is confirmed again by this bloody story that happened in the packaging and printing industry.

A company that wanted to go public, encountered constant reports from its peers in the final stage of the IPO, and withdrew its application when it was just short of going public. After dormant for more than half a year, the company regrouped and continued to attack the IPO. The first thing it did after returning was to bring its counterparts to court.

Recently, Runtianzhi, a company listed on the NEEQ, issued an announcement stating that Hanhong Group sued the company for commercial slander, claiming a claim of 100 million.

Shenzhen Hanhong Digital Printing Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Hanhong Group") is the company that withdrew its listing application after the above-mentioned IPO was reported. In April last year, Hanhong Group submitted its listing application and withdrew it voluntarily 7 months later. In July of this year, CICC disclosed its counseling and filing information to Hanhong Group at the Shenzhen Securities Regulatory Bureau.

This time, Hanhong Group preemptively intends to "close" the "compete killing" case with Runtianzhi during the counseling period.

On August 26, the staff of Runtianzhi's Office of the Secretary of the Board of Directors told Times Finance that the company has not yet received the notice of case initiation, and only inquired about the lawsuit-related information from the Internet. "After communicating with the supervisory agency and the law firm, we decided to make an announcement first. The case has not yet started."

Regarding the previous case against Hanhong Group for infringement of the company’s business secrets, the staff member stated, “The Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court ruled on this case in November 2020 and sent it back to the Shenzhen Longgang District People’s Court for retrial. The case is still being heard. In China, the final ruling has not been announced."

Runtianzhi was established in 2000, and its main business is the R&D, production and sales of inkjet printing equipment such as digital printers.

Hanhong Group is the "descendant" of Runtianzhi. Founded in 2012, it is also an enterprise that produces and operates digital inkjet printing equipment.

On August 17, Runtianzhi announced that the company was sued by Hanhong Group. Also listed as the defendant was Runtianzhi Chairman Jiang Hong.

The cause of the dispute comes from the fact that since Hanhong Group submitted its IPO application to the Shanghai Stock Exchange for listing on the Science and Technology Innovation Board in April 2020, Runtianzhi has continuously submitted more than a dozen reports to the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

Hanhong Group believes that these reports contain false or misleading information, and have attracted attention from various media, seriously damaging the company's business reputation, and causing serious negative effects on the company's IPO.

Hanhong Group sued Runtianzhi. Source: Runtianzhi Announcement

In November 2020, Hanhong Group took the initiative to withdraw its application for issuance and listing.

In this lawsuit, Hanhong Group requested to order Run Tianzhi to immediately stop unfair competition behaviors that damage Hanhong Group’s business reputation, and issued a statement of apology on the company’s official website, "China Securities Journal", and the official website of the National SME Share Transfer System. The Shanghai Stock Exchange issued a letter to clarify and eliminate the impact.

In addition, Hanhong Group also requested an order for Runtianzhi to pay 100 million yuan in damages.

This paper lawsuit brought back the old case reported by peers during the IPO stage in 2020 back to the public's attention.

At that time, after accepting the listing application materials of Hanhong Group at the Shanghai Stock Exchange, Runtianzhi submitted multiple reports and publicized the case in the form of a press conference. In addition to the content of the report letter involving intellectual property disputes and trade secret disputes, Runtianzhi also reported that Hanhong Group and its distributors "fight a cooperative battle" with false sales.

Part of the report letter published by Runtianzhi.

In June 2020, Runtianzhi initiated a lawsuit against Shenzhen Handtop Digital Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Handtop Digital”) and its shareholder Hanhong Group, demanding that it stop infringing on the plaintiff’s technical secrets involved in the case and compensate 109 million yuan in economic losses.

Prior to this, Runtianzhi had launched a ten-year report and lawsuit against Zhao Yifa and Li Xiaogang, the core technicians of Hanhong Group. The two technicians resigned from Runtianzhi in 2009 and 2010 and joined Handtop Digital, a subsidiary of Hanhong Group. In 2011, Runtianzhi reported to the Shenzhen Municipal Public Security Bureau that the above-mentioned personnel violated commercial secrets.

The progress of this case can be described as tortuous, and the case has been appraised by several intellectual property and technology-related laboratories in the middle. However, Runtianzhi did not receive "justice". In 2018, the Shenzhen Longgang District Procuratorate twice returned to the investigative agency for supplementary investigations, and made a ruling in 2019, dismissing Runtianzhi's prosecution on the basis of insufficient evidence.

Seeing that the company suspected of infringing its own business secrets is about to go public, Run Tianzhi intends to make the last fight, from suing individuals to directly suing the company, and initiates multiple reports.

As of the date of publication, neither Runtianzhi sued Hanhong Group for infringement of commercial secrets or Hanhong Group counter-sued Runtianzhi for commercial defamation, neither of the two cases had been heard in court.

Regarding the previous case against Hanhong Group for infringement of the company’s commercial secrets, the staff replied, “The Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court made a ruling on this case in November 2020 and sent it back to the Shenzhen Longgang District Procuratorate for retrial. The case is still being heard. In China, the final ruling has not been announced."

Last year, after the case caused a large number of media and public attention, the Shanghai Stock Exchange's Science and Technology Innovation Board Listing Committee also focused on the issue of trade secret disputes in its two rounds of inquiry to Handuo Group.

Unlike Runtianzhi’s large-scale reporting and litigation, Hanhong Group’s response to this case was relatively restrained at that time, and only made a statement in the inquiry response that the trade secrets claimed by Runtianzhi did not belong to the core technology of inkjet printing equipment. , Li Erren and Handuo did not infringe on Runtianzhi’s business secrets.

Hanhong Group also stated in its reply that the company’s technical R&D team will not rely heavily on Zhao Yifa, Li Xiaogang or any technical R&D personnel. The two R&D personnel no longer actually participate in the R&D work at the executive level. If they leave, they will not be Will have an adverse impact on the company's operations.

In order to express the company’s “cleanness” and reduce the impact of the lawsuit on the company, Xiao Di, the actual controller of Hanhong Group, made a written promise on June 23, 2020: “If the case is lost, Hantuo Digital and The issuer needs to pay any compensation, related litigation costs, or the company's production and operation losses due to this litigation, I will bear the company's tort compensation, case costs and production and operating losses arising from this litigation."

It is worth noting that Runtianzhi is not only targeting these two R&D personnel. In the report letter, Runtianzhi stated that according to incomplete statistics, 28 people who had worked at Runtianzhi joined the Hanhong Group, and 26 of them or their family members are now shareholders of the Hanhong Group.

In 2020, when the reporting incident was raging, Hanhong Group did not initiate a counterclaim immediately, but a year later, when Runtianzhi sued its commercial secrets infringement case without substantial progress, it launched a "counterattack", and compared with Runtianzhi’s at that time. A claim of 100 million has also been filed for the amount of the claim, and perhaps sufficient preparations have been made.

At present, Hanhong Group has returned to the status of listing counseling, and the counseling agency has changed from Minsheng Securities to CICC.