Recently, an official statement on the online voice social platform Companion APP has attracted the attention of netizens. On April 21, the official WeChat public account of the company issued the "Wuhan Changxiang Company Sues All Employees, Anchors and Partners for Business Suspension", saying that the Shunde public security organ in Foshan, Guangdong Province transferred more than 300 million yuan of the bank account funds of the company and its affiliates to the account of the Shunde District Public Security Bureau, of which the personal funds of the company's shareholders were also deducted about 20 million yuan, accusing the Shunde public security of "illegal case handling".
The New Yellow River reporter learned that the companion APP is a social platform product developed by Chang Xiang (Wuhan) Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Chang Xiang Company"), which previously claimed that it has more than 100 million users. In April 2023, the platform's personnel were investigated by the Shunde police on suspicion of opening a casino, in November of the same year, 25 people from Changxiang's company were prosecuted by the Shunde District People's Procuratorate, and from April 7 to 19, 2024, the case was publicly tried in the Shunde District People's Court in the first instance without a verdict pronounced in court. At the scene of the trial, Chang Xiang's company executives said that the financial personnel transferred more than 300 million yuan of company and personal funds to the account of the Shunde Public Security Bureau in the detention center, and some banks lost nearly 3 million yuan in interest due to early redemption of large fixed deposits. Former employees of Chang Xiang Company also told the New Yellow River reporter that due to the deduction of funds in the company's account, the legitimate rights and interests of thousands of employees such as wages and social security could not be guaranteed.
In response to the "300 million yuan of funds being deducted" reported by the company involved, on April 22, the New Yellow River reporter called the Shunde District Public Security Bureau, the procuratorate and the court, but did not receive an effective response as of press time. A staff member of the political and legal committee of the Shunde district party committee said that the committee would pay attention to intervening in the matter.
The company involved in the case said that the police "handled the case illegally", and about 300 million of the company's funds were deducted?
According to public information, Chang Xiang Company was established in March 2018, and its main business is Internet information services. The company's main product, the companion APP, is a mobile phone software for voice live broadcast, with 36 million registered users and more than 240,000 anchors. Changxiangban has been selected as one of the top 20 Internet growth enterprises in China in 2021 and 2022, and has also won honors such as "Key Software Enterprise" in Wuhan and Top 100 Service Enterprises in Hubei.
According to previous media reports, in April last year, the Public Security Bureau of Shunde District, Foshan City, Guangdong Province, went to the headquarters of Changxiangxiang Company in Wuhan Donghu High-tech Development Zone on the grounds that the Banban APP was suspected of opening a casino, and took away 4 executives and a number of financial and technical operation employees for investigation. Subsequently, Shunde police criminally detained 25 managers and employees of the company. In November 2023, the Shunde District People's Procuratorate prosecuted 7 executives, employees and 7 guild presidents and anchors of Changxiang Company with the Shunde District People's Court for the crime of opening a casino. In April 2024, the case was heard in the first instance of the Shunde District People's Court, but the verdict was not pronounced in court.
Just when the case was still pending, on April 21, Chang Xiang Companion Company issued a long article, raising a number of questions about the Shunde police's practices, and announcing that "the company cannot continue to operate, and the Companion APP has experienced a whole year of suffering, and now it has to announce that it will cease operations." In this "Letter of Suspension of Business", Chang Xiang's company claimed: "The Shunde Public Security detained all the personnel of the company's finance department in the detention center, and forced the financial personnel to transfer about 300 million yuan of the bank accounts of Chang Xiangxiang Company and its affiliates to the account of the Shunde District Public Security Bureau, and the personal funds of the company's shareholders were also forcibly transferred about 20 million yuan." Among them, including the account funds of the parent company and all its subsidiaries and some cooperative companies, most of the company's funds have nothing to do with the opening of casinos investigated by the Shunde Public Security. Even the bank's large-value certificates of deposit were forcibly redeemed by the Shunde Public Security and directly transferred to the Shunde Public Security Account, losing millions of yuan in interest alone. Chang Xiang's company was illegally and forcibly deducted by the Shunde public security due to the account money, and the official seal and bank U shield were all seized, resulting in the wages of all 1,600 employees, hundreds of thousands of platform anchors and partners unable to pay, and hundreds of thousands of people who rely on the platform to make a living fell into a situation of no livelihood......
On April 21, a participant in the case revealed to the New Yellow River reporter that during the trial, the defender asked the procuratorate and the court to urge the Shunde public security organs to transfer the illegally seized cash back to the original account within three days, but the public prosecutor of the Shunde District Procuratorate did not respond. The court initially had reservations, but the defender repeatedly emphasized the distinction between the property involved in the case and the lawful business income, and finally the judge said in court that the court could not meet the defender's request.
On April 22, the New Yellow River reporter called the Shunde District Public Security Bureau, the Shunde District Procuratorate, and the Shunde District Court several times on the matter of "300 million yuan of funds being deducted" raised by Chang Xiangxiang Company, but did not receive an effective response as of press time. A staff member of the Political and Legal Committee of the Shunde District Party Committee said that they would pay attention to the intervention, "Let's pay attention to it and understand the situation first." ”
Lawyer's analysis: The funds involved in the case can be frozen, but they cannot be directly deducted
The company that often accompanied him before being investigated
According to article 144 of the "Criminal Procedure Law of the People's Republic of China," "the people's procuratorates and public security organs may, in accordance with the needs of investigating crimes, inquire into and freeze the criminal suspect's deposits, remittances, bonds, stocks, fund shares, and other assets in accordance with regulations." In 2020, the Ministry of Public Security issued the "Notice on Further Strictly Regulating Case-Handling Coordination in Accordance with Law", which emphasized: "For the assets in the financial accounts of the persons and enterprises involved in the case, only freezing measures can be taken in accordance with the law, and it is strictly forbidden to transfer or transfer money or seize them in any other way in disguise." ”
In this regard, Yang Gongpeng, a lawyer outside the case and a lawyer from Beijing Strategy Law Firm, told the New Yellow River reporter that if the document issued by Chang Xiang Company is true, then the Shunde Public Security Department's practice of transferring a large amount of funds from the bank accounts of Chang Xiang Company and its affiliated companies to the public security account during the investigation stage does not comply with the relevant regulations.
Yang Gongpeng explained that the physical disposal of the property involved in the case before the trial is mainly divided into the pre-trial return procedure and the advance disposal procedure. On the basis of article 21 of the "Several Provisions on the Management of Assets Involved in Cases by Public Security Organs", where there is a corresponding bank account for assets such as bonds, stocks, and fund shares that fluctuate in market prices in advance, as well as bills of exchange, promissory notes, checks, and so forth whose validity period is about to expire, and where there is a corresponding bank account for assets such as bonds, stocks, and fund shares, the funds after the realization shall continue to be frozen in the corresponding account. In this case, account funds and large fixed deposits do not belong to the above-mentioned types of property. Therefore, the public security organs have no right to deal with it first. Second, the procedural measures taken by the public security organs mainly include measures such as sealing, seizure, and freezing, and these measures do not give the public security organs the authority to directly seize property. For the recovery of assets involved in the case, according to article 339 of the "Provisions on the Procedures for the Handling of Criminal Cases by Public Security Organs", the scope of recovery is limited to the circumstances where the criminal suspect has died or committed a major crime such as a terrorist activity crime, and the criminal suspect has fled. According to the facts of the case reported by the media, there is no such situation. Therefore, the public security organ's practice does not comply with the relevant regulations.
Fan Chen, a lawyer from Beijing Jingshi Law Firm, also told the New Yellow River reporter that the case has not yet been concluded, and the money involved in the case can only be disposed of after the case judgment takes effect, and the Shunde public security organ's approach is suspected of violating the law, "The case is under trial, and it should be handled by the court (the money involved in the case), and if there is an urgent need, it is also necessary for the court to deal with it, rather than the investigation agency to transfer the money to their own account." Lawyer Fan Chen also said that if the above-mentioned actions of the public security organs are true, they will also damage the legitimate interests of the company and employees involved in the case.
The companion app has been taken off the shelves, and a number of domestic platforms have been involved in gambling-related cases
According to a previous report by China Business Daily, according to the indictment, the gambling matter of the companion refers to the purchase of avatar frames set by its platform to send a lottery, and this probability game is privately cashed back by some anchors and players outside the venue. The prosecution alleges that since October 2018, Chang Xiangban has successively embedded probabilistic games such as "Open Star" and "Miner Activity" on the "Banban" platform, and set up withdrawal channels at the anchor account. Users recharge on the platform to get lucky draw opportunities, get virtual gifts by playing games with small probabilities, and reward the virtual gifts won to the anchor in the live broadcast room. After the anchor receives the virtual gift, it will be paid to the user, so as to complete the gambling chain of the user's recharge, lottery and cash. The company did not accept the accusation of opening a casino with the company's executives and employees. Chang Xiang argued that the Shunde Public Security Department's alleged act of buying and selling gifts occurred outside the company's platform, which technically the company could not monitor, and the law did not allow the supervision of off-platform behavior. If the user privately uses a third-party tool to trade virtual gifts, whether it is illegal or not, it has nothing to do with the platform. The company has never organized or planned to open a casino, and has always taken severe punishment measures for violations of laws and regulations.
Introduction to the official website of the companion app
In previous media reports, it was disclosed that the direct trigger of the gambling case was a financial dispute between a user who gave a high gift to an anchor and the anchor met offline. According to China Business Daily, after the case, the relevant departments of the optoelectronic park of Wuhan High-tech Zone, Hubei Province, where the company involved in the case operated, said that the district also attached great importance to it and has been trying its best to help. The department also revealed that the relevant departments of Hubei Province, city, and district had communicated with relevant departments in Foshan and Shunde, Guangdong, but it was inconvenient to disclose the specific situation.
It is important to note that this case is not an isolated case. According to the reporter's combing through public reports, in 2023, a number of chat platform operators will be investigated by the police on suspicion of casino crimes. After May 2023, nearly 40 Yuchat platforms issued announcements announcing the cessation of operations, forming a wave of "shutdown waves". Although most of these platforms announced the suspension of services on the grounds of "business adjustment", a number of media reports pointed out that behind the investigation of these involved chat platforms, it directly pointed to a lottery game called "probability play" on the platform. Xie Ziqian, a lawyer at Shanghai Landing (Guangzhou) Law Firm, once told the media that the commonly understood probabilistic play refers to the "small game" in which users can randomly break out virtual coins or virtual gifts of different values after participating in the game by investing a certain amount of virtual currency. But it's important to emphasize that probabilistic play itself is not gambling."
Zong Wei (pseudonym), a former employee of Changxiangxiang Company, told the New Yellow River reporter that they had always believed that the company was operating legally and might be able to be listed in the future, but since April last year, the company has come to a standstill, and many employees have left due to unpaid wages. "The vast majority of the company's business is not involved in the case, and this part of the income that is not involved in the case can be paid our wages, social security and compensation?" Another person who participated in the trial told reporters that although the first trial of this case lasted for many days, the question-and-answer session has not yet ended, and the next trial time is tentatively scheduled for May 7.
A few days ago, the New Yellow River reporter could not search for the companion APP in a number of mobile phone software stores. Zong Wei told reporters that the companion app had been removed from the shelves and suspended last year, "and there is no fund to maintain." ”
Source: Jinan Times-New Yellow River