The list of winners of the Third Golden Line Awards was recently announced. This event was initiated jointly by well-known legal self-media gaoshanLEGAL and Wolters Kluwer N.V. and held by Golden Line Legal Vision. By virtue of our rich professional experience, remarkable industry performance, and high-quality legal services, Tahota Law Firm won the “Golden Line Judicial Case Award for Internet, Science & Technology, and IPR Protection” and was nominated for the “Golden Line Judicial Case Award for Real Estate and Construction Engineering”. 

“Golden Line Judicial Case Award for Internet, Science & Technology, and IPR Protection” — a dispute on unfair competition between Migu Music Co., Ltd. and Taobao (China) Software Co., Ltd. and Hangzhou Alibaba Music Technology Co., Ltd.

Since the right of communication through information network obtained by Migu Music regarding the song involved in the case is merely a general license, the opposing party will be hardly held accountable for copyright infringement according to law. After analysis, the lawyer team proposed to safeguard the affected party’s rights by claiming that it’s an unfair competition due to hotlink of the song library data, according to the Article 2 of the Anti-Unfair Competition Law of the People’s Republic of China against Unfair Competition. As the first case of unfair competition regarding the song library of an online music platform, it has received great attention from the industry. It is also the first online unfair competition case judged by the people’s court in accordance with the Interpretation by the Supreme People’s Court of Several Issues Concerning the Application of the Anti-Unfair Competition Law of the People’s Republic of China since the implementation of this Interpretation.

Reason for the award: It creatively identifies the nature of interests and rights in the song library of a music app and helps improve similar enterprises’ confidence in continuing or increasing investment in song library resources. 

Winners: Huang Chunhai and Luo Juan, lawyers of Tahota Law Firm

Nomination for the “Golden Line Judicial Case Award for Real Estate and Construction Engineering” — a dispute with shareholders on joint real estate development 

This case was accepted by two courts with great influence in the jurisdiction and even across the country — Chongqing No. 5 Intermediate People’s Court for first instance and the High People's Court of Chongqing Municipality for second instance. Since no previous judgments that the project company involved is not required to return the “borrowings from shareholders” have been found through public retrieval, this is the first case where a judgment was made to declare that capital contributions to the project company by shareholders for real estate development is not required to be returned. It clearly indicates that no requests for the return of shareholders’ investment, which is recorded as “loan” in the financial accounting, shall be made through a legal relationship of loan, as there is no loan relationship between both parties due to the lack of their agreement on loan.

Winner: Wu Kaiming, lawyer of Tahota Law Firm