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▲gongcheng county people's court

red star news reporter liu mumu from guilin

editor: guo yu editor: feng lingling

a criminal judgment recently issued by the people's court of gongcheng county, guilin, guangxi shows that duan hua, director of the criminal committee of the guilin lawyers association, was sentenced to 11 years and 2 months in prison in the first instance for the crimes of fraud and bribery.

the criminal judgment stated that when duan hua represented a company in guilin in an enforcement case, he concealed key evidence and obtained debt claims through means such as "debt transfer", causing huge property losses to the company. his behavior constituted fraud.

duan hua himself argued that the enforcement case was very complicated and involved huge risks. it took him three years to provide evidence and he finally won the case after going through multiple procedures including execution objections and reconsideration. his use of "risk agency" to obtain attorney risk fees and debt claims was legal.

duan hua's family told red star news that duan hua was dissatisfied with the verdict and had appealed to the guilin intermediate people's court. he has also applied for rights protection to the guilin lawyers association, the guangxi lawyers association and the all-china lawyers association.

an old case that originated in 1999

duan hua is from chenzhou, hunan province. he once worked at guangxi gufang law firm and later served as the director of guangxi qixing law firm and the director of the criminal committee of guilin lawyers association.

according to the facts ascertained by the gongcheng county court, the case of fraud and bribery that duan hua was accused of originated from an old case in 1999.

in june 1999, guilin guilian bus industry co., ltd. (guilian company) and lijiang fengqing travel agency co., ltd. (lijiang company) signed a "bus purchase contract", stipulating that lijiang company would purchase 10 light buses from it. in august 2000, because lijiang company still owed a balance of more than 1.44 million yuan, guilian company took the case to court.

zhao jun is the legal representative of lijiang company. in june 2001, the people's court of yanshan district, guilin city (hereinafter referred to as yanshan court) issued a civil mediation document on the case of guilian company suing lijiang company and zhao jun for a contract dispute over installment payment. the two parties reached an agreement as follows: lijiang company should pay guilian company a total of 1.442 million yuan for the purchase price and economic losses, and zhao jun shall bear joint and several liability for the debt.

however, the property of lijiang company was later auctioned off by the intermediate people's court of lijiang district, yunnan province to repay debts. the company's business license was revoked, and its legal representative zhao jun was wanted by the public security authorities for suspected fraud and his whereabouts are unknown. since lijiang company had no property to be executed, yanshan court issued a ruling in march 2005 to terminate the execution.

in the second half of 2013, ma junjie, former deputy manager of the lijiang company, reported that zhao jun had fled to xinjiang under the alias "yang zhiming", got married and had children, and died of illness two years ago. his estate was inherited by his wife feng mouying, son yang mouyu and others.

▲duan hua

in november of that year, commissioned by xu lunguang, qin lian and others, the actual managers of guilian company, duan hua and his partner, lawyer chen wen, went to xinjiang in late that month to investigate and verify the content of ma junjie's report. the investigation found that the content of ma junjie's report was true, so they applied to yanshan court to resume the execution of the terminated execution case against guilian company, lijiang company and zhao jun.

in june 2014, yanshan court accepted the case and resumed execution, and issued an execution ruling that month, sealing and freezing yang zhiming (zhao jun)'s equity and all property in turpan desert ecological tourism development co., ltd. on july 1 of the same year, yanshan court issued the execution ruling (2014) yanzhizi no. 199-1, adding feng mouying as the person to be executed.

the results of facial identification "conform to the rule of the same person"

regarding the above-mentioned ruling, feng mouying had filed an objection to the execution to the yanshan court, believing that the procedure for adding him as the person to be executed was illegal and that there was no factual basis for determining that yang zhiming was zhao jun.

to this end, guilian company entrusted duan hua as the agent for the execution objection case and applied for a judicial appraisal of the signatures of zhao jun and yang zhiming, and the conclusion was that the signatures were the same.

yanshan court rejected feng mouying's request, and she applied for reconsideration to the guilin intermediate people's court. the case was sent back to yanshan court for reexamination.

during the review by the yanshan court, guilian company applied to the court for a forensic appraisal of whether zhao jun and yang zhiming were the same person. based on the photo of "zhao jun" in the industrial and commercial registration filing materials of "lijiang company" and the photo of "yang zhiming" in the marriage registration materials of "yang zhiming" and "feng mouying" at the tianshan district civil affairs bureau of urumqi, the guangxi gongming judicial appraisal center issued an opinion in september 2015, concluding that the photos were of the same person and "conformed to the characteristics of photos of the same person."

"the most difficult part of this enforcement case is how to prove that 'yang zhiming' is the 'zhao jun' of that year." chen wen recently told red star news that after obtaining clues, she and duan hua, liu jun, director of the enforcement bureau of yanshan court, and others traveled to xinjiang, gansu, ningxia, yunnan and other places many times.

gongcheng court found out that chen wen went to yanshan court on october 10, 2015 to collect the biometric appraisal report and informed the defendant duan hua, but duan hua did not inform xu lunguang, qin lian or relevant personnel of guilian company.

according to duan hua, taking into account the difficulty of executing the case, the legal risks, the reporting costs, the fact that the debt had been written off as a bad debt, the fact that guilian company had no funds to pay for the lawyer's fees, and the fact that its account had also been seized, he reached a verbal agreement on risk agency and debt transfer with guilian company and gufang law firm before the case was resumed.

at a meeting held in october of that year, the relevant parties discussed the transfer of the debt rights of guilian company to duan hua. qin lian, xu lunguang and duan hua attended the meeting.

evidence from the public hearing showed that several people who attended the meeting said that duan hua mentioned at the meeting that the execution of the case was difficult. regarding the method of purchasing the debt with 300,000 yuan, some participants believed that duan hua "took a great risk." in the end, because it may involve multiple risks, the debt transfer method is questionable and "it is recommended to use a risk agent."

people in the legal field explain that risk agency is essentially a "victory-fee system," meaning that the parties do not need to pay agency fees in advance, but can receive compensation that exceeds the usual standards based on the success or execution of the case.

multiple rounds of litigation to fight against the execution of more than 6 million yuan

at this meeting, duan hua did not disclose the conclusion of the "physiognomy identification", and the prosecutor believed that duan hua deliberately "concealed" it. in this regard, chen wen explained to red star news that the previous investigation had fully proved that "yang zhiming" and "zhao jun" were the same person, and the conclusion of the "physiognomy identification" was not a special case that needed to be notified to guilian company.

on december 30, 2015, duan hua and his gufang law firm signed and stamped the written "risk agency contract" and "debt transfer agreement"; guilian company stamped the two documents on january 6 of the following year. the "risk agency contract" stipulates that duan hua will act as the risk agent for the execution case, and guilian company will receive 300,000 yuan in execution funds; the "debt transfer agreement" stipulates that guilian company will transfer the debt involved in the case to duan hua, and the transfer fee of 300,000 yuan will be paid within three days after the execution funds are received.

▲risk agency agreement

duan hua later told the court that, except for the airfare for a business trip to xinjiang with the enforcement personnel of yanshan court in june 2014, all other expenses of the enforcement case were borne by him personally. in addition, because feng mouying raised objections to the enforcement many times, he also faced the risk of actual "inability to enforce".

public court records show that in october 2015, feng mouying submitted a written objection to the forensic appraisal of the person's appearance to the yanshan court. afterwards, guilian company applied to add her son yang mouyu as the person to be executed. after hearing the case, the guilin intermediate people's court held that zhao jun and yang zhiming were the same person and rejected feng mouying and yang mouyu's requests for reconsideration.

on july 12 and 13, 2016, feng mouying took the initiative to pay 4.992 million yuan to yanshan court; on july 13, guilian company issued a confirmation of debt transfer to yanshan court, and duan hua transferred 300,000 yuan to the personal account of qin jing, the financial director of guilian company, according to qin lian's instructions, and duan hua later received 4.945 million yuan in execution money. on september 22 of the same year, feng mouying paid another 1.268 million yuan to yanshan court, and duan hua received the 1.268 million yuan in execution money.

the ruling shows that lijiang company initially owed more than 1 million yuan, and the actual amount of execution finally exceeded 6 million yuan, which was the result after calculating the principal, interest and penalty interest.

at this point, the execution of the cases against guilian company, lijiang company and zhao jun has been completed. later, according to statistics from li xueji, the lawyer who defended duan hua in the first trial, duan hua "went through eight rounds of litigation confrontation" to represent the case, which took more than three years in total.

the first instance court found the crime of fraud

on august 10, 2022, duan hua was detained by the guilin yanshan district supervisory committee. at that time, duan hua was the director of the criminal committee of the guilin lawyers association and the director of the guangxi qixing law firm.

public court information shows that in july 2022, the yanshan district supervisory committee discovered clues of duan hua's suspected illegal activities while handling the case of liu jun, the former director of the execution bureau of the yanshan district people's court, who was suspected of violating discipline and law, and then filed a case against duan hua. liu jun confessed that duan hua gave him 200,000 yuan in gratitude for his help in the above-mentioned execution case.

duan hua once admitted to giving liu jun 30,000 yuan in bribes, but later said that the "bribery crime" was a fabricated case. according to the guilin municipal commission for discipline inspection, liu jun was expelled from the party, dismissed from his government post, and demoted to a second-level clerk. regarding the bribery issue in this case, red star news recently called liu jun, but he did not answer the phone to explain.

qin lian said that if he knew in advance that he could eventually recover more than 6 million yuan based on penalty interest and interest, he would not have agreed to transfer the debt for 300,000 yuan.

from march 26 to 29, april 8, and june 4, 2024, gongcheng court held trials for duan hua's fraud and bribery. the gongcheng county people's procuratorate accused the defendant duan hua of fabricating facts, concealing the truth, and defrauding others of property for the purpose of illegal possession, and the amount was extremely huge. in order to seek improper benefits, he gave 200,000 yuan to state employees, and he should be held criminally responsible for fraud and bribery.

duan hua argued that the enforcement case was complicated and there was a huge risk of non-enforcement. he had been providing evidence for three years and finally won the case after going through the enforcement objection and review procedures, which proved the hard work of his agency work.

gongcheng court held that duan hua had not disclosed or explained the key evidence of the execution objection case and the legal opinions that increased the possibility of winning the case to qin lian, xu lunguang or other personnel of guilian company until he signed the written "risk agency contract" and "debt transfer agreement" with guilian company, which caused guilian company to mistakenly believe that the case was still difficult to advance and execute, and then made the wrong decision to transfer the debt at a low price. the defendant duan hua obtained the debt involved in the case by deceiving by concealing the truth, causing huge property losses to guilian company. his behavior was not a legal civil legal act, but a fraudulent act.

the amount of fraud finally determined by gongcheng court was 5.913 million yuan, the remaining amount after deducting the 300,000 yuan "debt transfer fee" paid to guilian company from the execution money received by duan hua. the amount of bribery determined was 30,000 yuan as he confessed.

on august 2, 2024, gongcheng court made the following judgment: the defendant duan hua was convicted of fraud and sentenced to eleven years in prison and a fine of rmb 900,000; he was convicted of bribery and sentenced to nine months in prison and a fine of rmb 100,000; it was decided to execute a sentence of eleven years and two months in prison and a fine of rmb 1 million.