The truth behind Bitmain’s “business license grabbing” (updated with injured person information and lawyer’s opinions)

Anything that goes viral will inevitably have a reversal.

On the afternoon of May 10, a Bitmain employee posted a message on WeChat Moments, saying that Zhan Ketuan hired bodyguards to beat up Bitmain employees. So far, neither party has responded to this.

According to Radar Finance, several lawyers told Radar Finance that if the shareholders' meeting authorizes the company to take away its business license, it is not illegal, although the means are drastic. Whether Zhan Ketuan can regain the controlling stake depends on the shareholders' meeting vote. If he gets majority support, he can regain the controlling stake in Bitmain.

Wang Weiwei, legal advisor of Radar Finance and partner of Beijing Zhongwen Law Firm, believes that acts such as snatching business licenses and official seals are particularly common in disputes over control of a company. Generally, as long as it does not cause public security disputes such as fights, the public security department rarely intervenes and will consider it an internal civil dispute of the company.

Regarding whether Zhan Ketuan can regain control of Bitmain, Wang Zhibin and Wang Weiwei both stated that although Zhan Ketuan is currently the largest shareholder, he does not have absolute control. If he wants to regain control, he still needs to obtain support from other shareholders and win a vote at the shareholders' meeting.

In the report about "snatching business license" on the afternoon of the 8th, there were endless provocative fake news such as "sixty big men" and "arrested". But when Caixin's relatively objective report came out, no one paid attention to it. In addition, Caixin is a paid reading, so even fewer people paid attention to it.

The media pursues traffic, but truth should be put first. Before Caixin's report on "snatching official seals", Wu said that blockchain did not make any statement. We have the responsibility to provide credible and reliable information. The so-called "insiders" who deliberately release false information to deceive the public should be resisted.

(Picture from Caijing.com)

Regarding the business license snatching incident, according to the initial media reports, it started with Li Guoqing's "four big men" and ended with Wu Jihan sending "sixty big men." However, the video leaked from the scene clearly showed a confrontation between two parties, with only a dozen people, and the "sixty big men" came out of nowhere.

Subsequent reports by Caixin and feedback from people at the scene confirmed what Wu said, that there were only a dozen people present, and both sides were equipped with security measures. As for the so-called burly men, there were even more on Zhan Ketuan's side.

Later, according to another media report, an insider claimed that Bitmain CFO Liu Luyao was arrested by the police for organizing the seizure of business licenses, and the news went viral online. However, anyone with a little common sense knows that "arrest" requires approval from the procuratorate before it can be executed. Just by looking at the wording, it is clear that this is fake news spread by an "informed person".

But according to subsequent reports from Caixin and people at the scene, the fact was that Zhan Ketuan, his two lawyers, Liu Luyao and staff from the Haidian District Market Supervision Bureau all went to the Beijing Shangdi Center Police Station to take statements. The first person to be taken away was actually Zhan's lawyer who insulted the industrial and commercial staff.

However, Zhan Ketuan or his lawyers and public relations staff continued to release false information to the media, including pictures and videos, taking advantage of speed and traffic. In the end, Wu Jihan was portrayed as hiring gangsters and provoking government departments by the fake news released by Zhan Ketuan. The "bad money drives out good money" in the information and public relations war was fully exposed.

Back to the cause of the incident, the truth is very simple.

Bitmain is a subsidiary of Cayman Islands controlled Hong Kong, which in turn controls the mainland. Therefore, the battleground between Zhanketuan and Wu Jihan should be in Cayman Islands. The core of the dispute is whether Wu Jihan convened a shareholders' meeting to remove Zhanketuan's voting rights on the Cayman Islands board of directors. But why is there such a huge dispute in Beijing?

The reason is that Zhan Ketuan and his lawyer seized on a minor procedural error when Wu Jihan changed the Beijing legal person and restored the legal person's position through administrative reconsideration. The specific loopholes are also clearly stated in the Caixin article, so I will not repeat them here. So the question is? Since Cayman and Hong Kong are still in the hands of Wu Jihan, why can't the Beijing legal person be changed again using the correct procedures?

(Pictured is the administrative reconsideration letter, from WeChat Moments)

The reason is that, due to the inside story that we cannot know, Wu Jihan believes that Zhan Ketuan used "illegal" means administrative or relationship power to operate. In fact, the legal community generally believes that administrative reconsideration is "civilians suing officials" with a very low success rate, but Zhan Ketuan actually won twice in a short period of time, which is extremely rare.

An insider of Bitmain revealed that after 18 years, Zhan Ketuan was obsessed with government relations and even "gifted" mining machines to relevant people. Wu Jihan was not good at this.

The reason why the ownership and "snatching" issue of business license arises is also very simple.

Zhan Ketuan won the administrative review, so he believes that the business license belongs to him; but Wu Jihan believes that Beijing Bitmain is only a subsidiary of Hong Kong and Cayman Islands, and the management rights of the company belong to him, and the business license and official seal naturally belong to him as well.

Lawyer Huo Yiji told Wu Blockchain that if the company's articles of association do not have clear provisions regarding the ownership of official seals and business licenses, it is often a blank area and disputes are common.

Currently, Bitmain is changing the legal person of Beijing Bitmain through Hong Kong, and Zhan Ketuan should be reporting the loss and reissuing the business license. Please continue to pay attention to the subsequent developments.

(Due to the issue of citing the content of Caixin report, the original text was deleted and reposted)