Yunnan Focused Photonics (Hangzhou) Inc(300203) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Yunnan Spotlight), a holding subsidiary of Focused Photonics (Hangzhou) Inc(300203) (300203. SZ), was involved in a dispute over the construction contract of a construction project, and it was alleged that a project payment of more than 2 million had been overdue for more than two years.
The project involved is the comprehensive improvement project of village environment in Qilu Lake Basin of Yunnan Province (hereinafter referred to as Qilu Lake Village project), and Yunnan spotlight is the leader of the consortium that won the bid for the project. This may be the chain reaction of the environmental protection fraud case in Qilu Lake, which caused a sensation last year.
In May last year, the Ministry of ecological environment reported typical cases of environmental fraud in Qilu Lake, with the “flexible enclosure” project as a typical representative. The project uses the “appearance project” to artificially interfere with the water quality monitoring and sampling environment, resulting in the illusion of water quality improvement. In early July last year, the supervision committee of Yunnan Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection disclosed the results of further investigation. The “flexible enclosure” project was jointly carried out by Ye guobing, general manager of Yunnan spotlight, and he bin, then vice mayor of Yuxi City. Ye guobing was also detained for suspected bribery in Qilu lake pollution control and other issues.
This environmental fraud case does not stop here. Focused Photonics (Hangzhou) Inc(300203) it was disclosed at the end of December last year that Yunnan spotlight was suspected of bribery, which means that Yunnan spotlight may be involved in the chain reaction of this environmental fraud case. Yunnan spotlight has successively won many environmental projects in Yunnan Province and contributed certain achievements to listed companies. What impact will relevant events have on listed companies?
dispute over construction contract in Yunnan spotlight
In 2018, Chen yueding, who was engaged in the construction of the environmental sewage pipe network project, contracted part of the Qilu Lake Village project. What he didn’t expect was that two years after the completion of the project, more than two million project funds still hadn’t arrived.
“It will be started in 2018 and passed the completion acceptance by the end of 2019.” Chen yueding reluctantly told the reporter of the daily economic news that for this reason, he took Yunnan spotlight to court last year. At the end of December, the court made the first instance judgment, but he was not very satisfied with the judgment result, so he chose to appeal.
Qilu Lake is one of the three sectorau lakes in Yuxi City, Yunnan Province. It is the “Mother Lake” in Tonghai County. Due to the high vegetable planting area in the basin and serious agricultural non-point source pollution, the water quality of Qilu Lake has been deteriorating for a long time. In order to improve water quality, Tonghai County has carried out environmental protection projects such as Qilu Lake Village project.
Qilu Lake Village project is a cooperative project between the government and social capital. The owner is Tonghai branch of Yuxi Ecological Environment Bureau (hereinafter referred to as Tonghai branch).
Public information shows that the bidding of Qilu Lake Village project began in September 2017. On December 22 of that year, Yunnan spotlight, Sichuan Yinghua Construction Engineering Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Sichuan Yinghua) and Yunnan Environmental Engineering Design and research center formed a consortium to sign a contract with Tonghai branch. The total service price agreed in the contract (tentative) is 56.58 million yuan. In the consortium, Yunnan spotlight is responsible for equipment supply as the leader, and Sichuan business planning is responsible for specific construction.
After undertaking the above projects, Sichuan Yinghua signed an internal contract with Chen yueding’s construction team and subcontracted some of the projects to it. Chen yueding is mainly responsible for sewage treatment. “We connect every household’s sewage together and form a large processor to dispose of it. After it is cleaned, it will be discharged into Qilu Lake.”
On December 24, 2019, the project undertaken by Chen yueding passed the completion acceptance. However, after the completion of the project, Chen yueding was unable to receive the money. Therefore, he tried many ways to recover the project funds.
Chen yueding not only sued his direct debtor Sichuan Yinghua and the project owner Tonghai branch, but also listed Yunnan spotlight as the defendant. In fact, in the Qilu Lake Village project, Tonghai branch will pay the project money to Yunnan spotlight, and then Yunnan spotlight will pay to the other two parties of the consortium. For the lawsuit of Chen yueding, Yunnan spotlight argued that it had paid the corresponding amount to Sichuan business planning, so it should not be liable.
The result of the first instance judgment of this case is that the court requires Sichuan business plan to pay the plaintiff the project payment of RMB 2023800 and the corresponding interest, and Yunnan spotlight shall bear the payment responsibility within the scope of unpaid Sichuan business plan.
In this case, Yunnan spotlight once argued that it had no arrears to Sichuan’s business plan and had overpaid 38.364 million yuan. Yunnan spotlight also tried to prove that the company did not owe it 5.487 million yuan for equipment due to Sichuan business planning, but the court did not support this argument. In addition, the court found that in the receipt of collection and payment business submitted by Yunnan spotlight, some of the payments occurred before the consortium signed the contract, and some were loans between the two parties.
For the first instance judgment, Chen yueding has submitted the appeal to the intermediate people’s court. He also revealed that Yunnan spotlight and Sichuan business planning are not simple partners, and the relationship between the two companies is not simple.
plaintiff: ye guobing, general manager of Yunnan spotlight or “left hand down right hand”
The reporter noted that the environmental protection fraud case of Qilu Lake, which caused a sensation last year, or laid the groundwork for the construction contract dispute case.
In May last year, the Ministry of ecological environment reported that there were many “appearance projects” in the process of pollution control of Qilu Lake, which caused the illusion of water quality improvement by interfering with the sampling environment of water quality monitoring points.
One of the “appearance projects” is the flexible enclosure project, that is, using PVC double-sided coated waterproof cloth, two U-shaped flexible enclosure projects are built around the national control monitoring point in the center of the lake, so as to form a relatively closed water area around the monitoring point, so as to prevent good water flow out and poor water flow in, and artificially interfere with the water quality monitoring and sampling environment.
Last July, the supervision committee of Yunnan Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection disclosed in its series of feature film “the cry of Qilu Lake” that the flexible enclosure project was jointly carried out by He Bin, then vice mayor of Yuxi, and ye guobing, general manager of Yunnan spotlight. At the same time, ye guobing was detained on suspicion of offering bribes to state public officials in the pollution control of Qilu Lake.
In the process of launching the flexible enclosure project, ye guobing played an important role. He Bin once said: “I asked ye guobing to go to Nanjing Zhishui (Nanjing Zhishui Environmental Technology Co., Ltd.), sign this (flexible enclosure) contract, and then work out the scheme. Help them coordinate Kunming Academy of Environmental Sciences and provide them with qualifications. Before bidding, ye guobing has been arranged to purchase and book these materials, hoping that he can succeed as soon as possible.”
Talking about this “appearance project”, Chen yueding was also quite indignant. “The flexible enclosure project is because the water was not treated completely when it was discharged into Qilu Lake. They played this trick, resulting in the failure of the whole processor to promote, save costs and fabricate.”
Yunnan spotlight is 51% owned by Focused Photonics (Hangzhou) Inc(300203) , 25% owned by Yunnan Zhonghuang Environmental Protection Industry Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Zhonghuang environmental protection) and 24% owned by Yunnan kaiweite Investment Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as kaiweite). Ye guobing is the general manager of Yunnan spotlight and vice chairman of Zhonghuang environmental protection. At present, Yu Hui, the legal representative and chairman of Yunnan spotlight, is the chief financial officer of Focused Photonics (Hangzhou) Inc(300203) .
The general manager of the subsidiary was investigated. Last July, Focused Photonics (Hangzhou) Inc(300203) disclosed on the investor interaction platform that Yunnan spotlight is a joint venture established by Focused Photonics (Hangzhou) Inc(300203) , Zhonghuang environmental protection and kaiwitt. Ye guobing, a shareholder of Zhonghuang environmental protection and kaiwitt, served as the general manager of Yunnan spotlight.
Public information shows that Sichuan business planning is the bid winner of the general contracting project for the design and construction of Qilu Lake flexible enclosure project. According to Chen yueding, the actual controller of Sichuan camp planning is ye guobing. He said that the reason why the project was undertaken by a consortium composed of three parties was mainly to facilitate ye guobing to make huge profits by deducting the project funds layer by layer and “turning left hand over right hand”.
Is this the case? The reporter noted that from the perspective of industrial and commercial information, ye guobing did not appear in the ranks of shareholders or executives of Sichuan business planning. Shi Youxiang was the then legal representative and major shareholder of Sichuan business planning before 2021. However, by querying the industrial and commercial registration data, the reporter also found many intersections between Sichuan Yinghua and ye guobing.
For example, the industrial and commercial registration telephone numbers of Sichuan Yinghua Tonghai branch and Yuxi branch were or are the same as those of Tonghai Zhongheng Petroleum Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Zhongheng petroleum), kaiweite and other companies in which ye guobing worked. Among them, kaiweite is the shareholder of Yunnan spotlight, and ye guobing is also the legal representative and shareholder of kaiweite. Zhongheng petroleum is 51% owned by Ye guobing, and its legal representative Chen Hui has the same name as Yunnan spotlight director Chen Hui
five companies with the same industrial and commercial registration telephone source: screenshot of qixinbao
Through social software search, the name of the person with the same mobile phone number is Teng Zhichen, which is also listed as the person in charge of Sichuan Yinghua Tonghai branch and Yuxi branch, the former legal representative of kaiwitt and the current supervisor of Zhongheng petroleum. According to Chen yueding, Teng Zhichen had a close relationship with ye guobing. Ye guobing and Teng Zhichen were present when they signed a contract with the Sichuan battalion.
Recently, the reporter of “daily economic news” also called Yunnan spotlight and Sichuan business planning industrial and commercial registration for many times, but they were unable to get through.
Will Focused Photonics (Hangzhou) Inc(300203) be more affected?
Last year, after ye guobing was disclosed on suspicion of bribery and took retention measures, many investors were quite concerned about the impact of Focused Photonics (Hangzhou) Inc(300203) .
On December 30 last year, Focused Photonics (Hangzhou) Inc(300203) announced that it had received a notification letter from Yunnan spotlight that the company was suspected of bribery and had entrusted a lawyer to submit the entrustment procedures to the procuratorial organ. At present, Focused Photonics (Hangzhou) Inc(300203) has no specific information.
By the end of June 2021, Focused Photonics (Hangzhou) Inc(300203) had invested 7.65 million yuan in Yunnan spotlight. By the end of 2020, Yunnan spotlight ranked fifth in the closing balance of other receivables of Focused Photonics (Hangzhou) Inc(300203) (parent company), with non operating current accounts of 6.1247 million yuan
Image Source: Focused Photonics (Hangzhou) Inc(300203) annual report screenshot
Since its establishment, in addition to winning the bid for Qilu Lake Village project, Yunnan spotlight has also won the bid for many projects of Yunnan provincial environmental protection department and Kunming Wuhua District Environmental Protection Bureau, including the provincial power monitoring capacity-building project of Yunnan ecological environment monitoring network and the construction and procurement project of air automatic station of Kunming Wuhua District Environmental Protection Bureau, with a total winning amount of more than 100 million yuan. Some of these projects have been completed, which has undoubtedly contributed to Focused Photonics (Hangzhou) Inc(300203) .
In this construction contract dispute, Focused Photonics (Hangzhou) Inc(300203) is also involved and needs to bear corresponding responsibilities?
Chen yueding told reporters, “we don’t understand. At present, it is not linked to Focused Photonics (Hangzhou) Inc(300203) . It has many legal affairs and has to file a lawsuit with listed companies. It’s a monkey year and a horse month.”
Lawyer Wang huaitao of Shanghai Xingu law firm believes that because the company is responsible for its own responsibilities, the holding subsidiary is responsible for its liabilities with its own assets, and the listed company does not need to bear other legal liabilities except for its subsidiaries.
What impact will the bribery of suspected units in Yunnan focus have on Focused Photonics (Hangzhou) Inc(300203) ? Wang huaitao believes that it may have an impact on the profits and other financial indicators of the listed company. For example, if the involved direct executives and other directly responsible personnel work in the listed company at the same time, they may also have an impact on the listed company according to their positions. Anhui Huida law firm founder lawyer also said that if it is a unit behavior, the company will face a fine.
In order to understand the details, on January 25, the reporter of “daily economic news” called Focused Photonics (Hangzhou) Inc(300203) the office of the board secretary, and the other party said that it would not accept the interview, subject to the announcement.
