Southeast Asia Information Port (www.dnyxxg.com) – On January 29, the Supreme People's Court, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, and the State Administration for Market Regulation jointly released five typical cases on regulating professional claimants and maintaining market order. These cases serve as a warning to those engaged in professional claimants to abide by laws and regulations, conduct business with integrity, and maintain a sound business environment and market order.
In recent years, some professional claimants have abused complaint, reporting, and litigation channels, exploiting legal systems such as "refund one, compensate ten" or "refund one, compensate three" to achieve exorbitant compensation claims. Some have even maliciously created the illusion of illegal production and operation to engage in extortion, fraud, and other illegal and criminal activities, disrupting market transaction order and harming the legitimate rights and interests of producers and operators.
In these cases, some individuals placed pre-prepared cockroaches into their food at multiple restaurants, demanding free meals and compensation on five separate occasions, obtaining a total of 1,663 yuan on four of those occasions. Others traveled to supermarkets and coffee shops across multiple provinces, puncturing food packaging with steel needles and stuffing in hair or steel wool, then demanding refunds and compensation under the pretext of quality issues.
According to reports, these cases are characterized by small amounts, frequent occurrences, and wide scope. Merchants are likely to choose to avoid trouble, which, in the long run, will lead to lower market expectations and damage to market order. Administrative law enforcement agencies and judicial organs must strengthen cooperation and coordination, improve the connection between civil and administrative, civil and criminal, and administrative and criminal procedures, and promptly transfer cases involving suspected crimes discovered during the handling of complaints, reports, or civil cases to public security organs for legal prosecution, punishing illegal claims across the entire chain. Those who commit crimes will not be tolerated, especially those involved in "professional" and "organized" criminal activities, resolutely "drawing the sword" to maintain normal market transaction order.
In recent years, the methods of illegal claims have been constantly evolving. Some criminals target specific merchants, fabricating product transactions and quality issues to defraud and embezzle money.
In one case, e-commerce operator Huang and others organized others to fabricate buyer express delivery slips and videos and photos of bulging and leaking food packaging to create a false claim on an online platform that chicken feet produced by a certain food company had quality problems, defrauding the company of more than 90,000 yuan in refunds. Huang was ultimately sentenced to three years and three months in prison and fined 5,000 yuan. The other defendants received varying sentences based on the circumstances of their crimes. (End)
