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On April 29, a complaint caused an uproar in Hong Kong's legal circles. The plaintiff is a low-key Asian capital investment company, but the defendant is Ding Yumei, the ex-wife of Xu Jiayin, the founder of Evergrande Real Estate. The amount of the claim is staggering enough - more than 850 million Hong Kong dollars!
What kind of lengthy dispute is this that requires such a high amount of compensation? What did Ding Yumei, a woman who seems to have fallen into a quagmire, do to cause such a catastrophe? We may be able to get a glimpse of the whole picture of the matter from this lawsuit.
Guangzhou, a villa area. In front of an elegant single-family house, a maid mops the floor. I saw her suddenly stop her movements and watch warily at a strange man walking outside the door. "Hello, is Ms. Ding at home?" The man asked politely. "Who?" The maid looked him up and down, and although her tone was neither humble nor arrogant, it was full of precautions.
"I am Ms. Ding's lawyer. The man pulled out a black leather folder, pulled out a document and shook it in front of the maid, "There are some important legal documents that she needs to sign. The maid relaxed and hurriedly replied, "Oh, then please wait a minute." Saying that, he opened the door of the villa and begged Ding Yumei to come to meet the guests.
A moment later, a middle-aged woman with an extraordinary temperament appeared, wearing an off-white dress, her hair was pulled casually, and her steps were calm and generous. She looks like she is over 50 years old, but she still looks like a big beauty. "Hello, you're Ms. Ding Yumei, right?" The man stepped forward and shook hands, "My surname is Zhang, and I am a lawyer representing ORIX Asia Capital. Ding Yumei smiled indifferently: "Oh, it's rare for you to visit Lawyer Zhang in person, it really gives me face." "
Lawyer Zhang coughed dryly, and said with a straight face: "I won't tell you anything, there is a tricky legal matter that needs to be dealt with this time. He paused, and pulled out a document from his briefcase, "Ms. Ding, did you know that you have provided a secured loan of HK$821 million to two companies, Jushan Co., Ltd. and Haobang Co., Ltd.?" When Ding Yumei heard this, her face did not change, and she waved her hand casually: "I don't remember this clearly, but it sounds like a very normal investment business, is there any problem?"
"That's a big problem. Lawyer Zhang's tone changed sharply, "These two companies have been in arrears of loan principal and interest for more than a year, and the current cumulative arrears are as high as 859 million Hong Kong dollars! According to the guarantee agreement, ORIX Capital will recover all the arrears from you, the guarantor. With that, he handed the complaint to Ding Yumei: "This is the complaint we submitted to the High Court of Hong Kong. Please discuss with our litigation team as soon as possible and sign the confirmation document within 3 days. "
Ding Yumei's face changed suddenly, and a sneer appeared on the corner of her mouth. She turned around and left, and greeted Lawyer Zhang without looking back: "You guys go, I'll study it." All indications show that Ding Yumei's prosecution this time may be just a small episode in her carnival career. To understand the ins and outs of this matter, we have to start with Evergrande Group and Xu Jiayin, a former real estate giant.
As a veteran of China's real estate industry, Xu Jiayin founded Evergrande Group in 2004. In the following ten years, the company quickly rose to become a leader in the domestic real estate industry with Xu Jiayin's indomitable energy. However, all good things come with regrets. Since 2021, due to the influence of various internal and external factors, Evergrande has fallen into a quagmire of difficulties and has accumulated high debts. And the initiator is precisely Xu Jiayin and Ding Yumei, the dedicated husband and wife.
According to public reports, after Evergrande's listing, Xu Jiayin and Ding Yumei, as the actual controllers, received dividends and dividends of more than 70 billion Hong Kong dollars from the company. But this astronomical amount of money is not all from Evergrande's profits, but through bank loans and defaulting on payments to suppliers.
In other words, Xu Jiayin and Ding Yumei are wasting Evergrande's hard work and funds. However, the two did not seem to care about this, but instead fled the huge amount of money overseas, bought the overseas dollar bonds issued by Evergrande, and became Evergrande's creditors. Then, Evergrande was in trouble and had to default on its supplier accounts payable and repay the US dollar debt held by the Hui couple first. As a result, Evergrande fell into de facto bankruptcy in November 2021.
In this process, Xu Jiayin undoubtedly played the role of the fuse. But as his wife, Ding Yumei is not an innocent person who knows nothing. In fact, she is the "master" of the initiators. According to a number of media reports, from a very early stage, Ding Yumei has been secretly arranging and quietly transferring large sums of cash and equity overseas. This includes not only the dividends of Evergrande's listing, but also the huge amount of money earned by Xu Jiayin on the two major listing platforms of Evergrande Real Estate and Evergrande Wealth.
When Evergrande's bankruptcy was approaching, Ding Yumei further accelerated the process of transferring funds. She and Xu Jiayin sold stocks intensively in the months before the Evergrande thunderstorm, cashing out nearly HK$8 billion. At the same time, she also cashed out her 23 million deposits from her subsidiary Evergrande Wealth in advance. What's even more shocking is that in this process, Ding Yumei and Xu Jiayin also "strategically divorced", completely isolated and transferred all funds to Ding Yumei's name, leaving Xu Jiayin penniless.
Until now, Ding Yumei controls more than 60 billion known funds and is floating overseas. She is like a miser, looking for an oasis to live a temporary home, revered by others, and living a carefree and prosperous life. Xu Jiayin, on the other hand, is plagued by debts and laws, like a sad shadow. Interestingly, in this debt recovery turmoil, Ding Yumei turned out to be the debt collector. It all started with the HK$859 million secured loan.
According to ORIX Asia Capital, the loan occurred on November 8, 2021, and the borrowers are two low-key offshore companies, "Jushan Co., Ltd." and "Haobang Co., Ltd." And Ding Yumei is the common guarantor of these two companies. "According to the information we have, the boss behind these two borrowing companies is likely to be Ding Yumei herself. An ORIX insider who did not want to be named said, "Ding Yumei guaranteed loans for them in her personal name back then, probably for the purpose of evading supervision." "
Is the whereabouts of this huge amount of money also related to Ding Yumei? ORIX has not disclosed further details at present. But combined with Ding Yumei's previous operation of transferring a large amount of Evergrande funds overseas, we can easily associate some speculations. However, regardless of where the money ends up, ORIX's top goal now is to ensure the safe recovery of the funds. This is undoubtedly crucial for a professional capital operation company.
"We have deliberated and finally decided to file a claim lawsuit against Ms. Ding personally. The above-mentioned insider said, "The loan has been due for more than a year, and we have contacted Ms. Ding through various channels countless times, but we have not received an effective response. So the only way to go through the legal process is to resort to legal proceedings. According to a source in the Hong Kong legal circles, in the process of taking over the case, ORIX also did a lot of investigation and argumentation work step by step.
"ORIX's ability to launch such a huge claim lawsuit against Ding Yumei shows that they are quite confident in their chain of evidence and their grasp of victory. Mr. Ma, a senior barrister in Hong Kong, analyzed, "The other party has spent a lot of money to hire nearly 20 top lawyers in our firm, and it is obvious that (all-out)." On Ms. Ding's side, she has not disclosed how she will respond to the claim. However, judging from her cunning 818's ethics in the past, we can fully foresee that this lawsuit will be a protracted offensive and defensive battle.
"As plaintiffs' lawyers, we are certainly prepared for a long battle. ORIX insiders said, "After all, the other party is a sophisticated old man, and we must be more careful." But we are confident that we will eventually get justice!"
Will this dispute become a protracted legal battle as predicted above? Will ORIX be able to successfully recover the HK$859 million creditor's rights? Or will Ding Yumei, a "cunning rabbit," continue to get away with it? Let's wait and see! If you have any other views on this case, you are welcome to continue the discussion in the comment section.