How do you say “deadbeat” in Chinese? Proview, the company who sued Apple over the iPad trademark in China, is being sued by the law firm who helped the near-bankrupt tech company win their $60 million settlement from Apple.
It seems the Grandall Law Firm, who covered Proview’s legal fees in return for a four percent share of the settlement, is none too happy about being stiffed on its share of the $60 million payout — so they’re taking Proview to court in an effort to collect on the $2.4 million owed to them.
While acknowledging there is a contractual arrangement, where the law firm covers the legal fees in advance, and then the client to pays up after winning the case, Proview founder Yang Rongshan says it’s being all blown out of proportion. He says the complaint is “nonsense” since the company, which has one foot in the grave, and the other one on a banana peel, isn’t obliged to pay back immediately as it “isn’t under normal operation right now.” (Does it seem like this company has a lot of trouble understanding legal agreements?)
Yang says his company will not, “pass the buck,” but it looks like Proview will be headed back to court, this time on the other end of the lawsuit.
Watch out Grandall. Lets hope this agreement wasn’t signed with a Proview subsidiary who “wasn’t authorized” to sign such an agreement, or otherwise Proview will weasel their way out of this one too.
(According to Google Translate, the Chinese translation for “deadbeat” is: “賴賬.” If any reader knows this to be incorrect, please let us know.)
