Now IPAD victor Proview is sued by its OWN law firm

Monitor biz still hasn't paid its lawyers their fees

By Phil Muncaster, 23rd July 2012

Proview, the tech firm which recently forced Apple to part with $60 million to use the IPAD trademark in China, is now being sued by its own law firm after failing to pay its fees for the case.

Grandall Law Firm (as the firm is formally known) is after a four per cent slice of the settlement pay-out, which amounts to around $2.5m (£1.6m), according to Sina Tech (via Engadget).

The deal between failed monitor vendor Proview and Grandall meant that the law firm would stump up legal fees and other associated costs in advance, on the proviso that it would be paid in full as soon as a settlement was reached.

Lawyer Xie Xianghui claims that repeated requests for Shenzhen Proview to pay the fees it owes have been rejected, according to Sina.

Proview founder Yang Rongshan has hit back, however, arguing that Grandall’s behaviour is “nonsense”.

He has apparently claimed that because Proview is not operating as a normal company at the moment, it should not be bound by such terms.

The firm’s Shenzhen factory was closed a couple of years ago and Proview Technology is effectively now owned by its creditors, including Bank of China, who will all be fighting for their share of the pay-out.

Some reports have put the level of Proview’s debt as high as US$400m.

Yang, however, has stressed that his company will pay up in time and is not trying to “pass the buck” on this one.

Proview did seem to be holding out for a pay-out of over $1 billion, after a Guangdong court retired in April to consider whether Apple’s appeal against its trademark victory a few months earlier should be upheld.

However, it’s likely that despite the pressure on Apple to do a deal so that it could launch its latest fondleslab into China with no legal worries, the pressure on Proview from its creditors was stronger. ®

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