Keywords

Storage yard clearing; active enforcement; enforcement by stages

Case Overview

In 2019, a Sanya company leased its premises within a Sanya dock to an entity of China Railway Construction Corporation Limited (“CRCC”) for the manufacturing, storage and transport of the prefabricated parts for a project in Sanya. However, after the expiration of the lease contract, the CRCC entity continued to occupy the premises for storing the prefabricated parts of concrete caissons (the “caissons”) and other materials and facilities. The Sanya company thus filed two lawsuits and requested the court to order the CRCC entity to pay the outstanding hires and liquidated damages and to clear the caissons from the premises and return the premises. After the judgments of the two cases took effect, the leaser applied to the court for enforcement.

Enforcement

With a no-delay commitment by taking proactive judicial actions, the court took only 46 days to render the judgments and to carry out enforcement and conciliation by stages to ensure that the parties reached an agreement for making early payments and clearing the premises. The enforcement respondent took only two and a half months to clear off 49 caissons (a rectangle caisson weighed about 5000 tons, and a round caisson about 500 tons). The court carried out enforcement with goodwill and humanity to achieve win-win results: it urged the respondent to remove the caissons as soon as possible to reduce the piling up of liquidated damages and interest on the belated payments, and it also assisted the applicant in securing early payments from the respondent to replenish the company’s cash flow.

Significance

The premises involved in the two cases, covering an area of about 43,000 square meters, is located within the land area of a scientific expedition public dock planned by Nanshan Port, Sanya. The dock is a key link for constructing a support base for deep-sea scientific expeditions, which is bound to fill the gap where there is no scientific expedition public dock in China and will play a crucial role in acquiring the key technologies for deep-sea expeditions and advancing the state strategy for building a maritime power. The successful enforcement of the two cases not only stops further loss to the parties due to the unduly occupation of the dock areas but also removes the barriers for Nanshan Port to catch up with the schedule for building the scientific expedition public dock, hence providing strong judicial support for the development of the key industries in the Hainan Free Trade Port.