Lawyers Larry and Sara Urgently Intervene in International Trade Fraud Case, Securing L/C Injunction for Chinese Export Enterprise

In mid-2025, a Hong Kong-based foreign trade enterprise imported steel from a company in the Middle East. After signing a framework contract, the foreign trade enterprise issued two batches of orders successively, with the payment term agreed as irrevocable and non-transferable sight letter of credit (L/C) for both.

During the performance of the first batch of orders, the Hong Kong enterprise issued the L/C as contracted. The Middle Eastern company shipped the goods and submitted the documents to the bank, which completed the payment after verifying the documents as in compliance. However, upon receiving the goods, the Hong Kong enterprise discovered that the containers did not contain the ordered steel but stones—falling victim to international trade fraud.

More urgently, the L/C for the second batch of orders (amounting to approximately US$100000) had already been issued, and the Middle Eastern company had also shipped the goods and presented the documents to the bank. If the bank made the payment in accordance with regular procedures, the Hong Kong enterprise would face double losses: paying for both batches of orders but receiving only stones.

Under L/C settlement rules, the bank is required to examine the documents and decide whether to make the payment within 5 working days after receiving them. Therefore, the timely application for a court-issued L/C injunction became crucial to avoiding losses.

In the emergency, the Hong Kong enterprise entrusted Lawyers Larry Zhou and Sara Sun from Landing Law Office to jointly represent the case. Upon accepting the mandate, the two lawyers immediately launched an emergency disposal process and advanced four core tasks:

1. Rapidly confirming the competent court: Cases involving L/C injunctions are special commercial cases with high thresholds for court acceptance. The lawyer team urgently contacted the intermediate people's court, maritime court, financial court, and district people's court where the bank is located, conducted repeated communications with the case filing division regarding the nature and urgency of the case, and finally confirmed the competent court and completed the case filing preparations.

   
   

2. Breaking through the notarization time bottleneck: For a Hong Kong enterprise to litigate in mainland China, notarization of power of attorney documents is required. The regular notarization process takes 1 to 2 weeks, which would directly result in missing the bank's document examination deadline. To address this, the lawyer team, on one hand, coordinated with Hong Kong lawyers to expedite the notarization; on the other hand, they first submitted the application for L/C injunction and interim power of attorney documents to the court, simultaneously updating the court on the notarization progress and requesting the court to proceed with the case first. Ultimately, the court approved the request.

   
   

3. Collaborating with the bank to gain buffer time: The lawyer team promptly communicated with the paying bank, pointed out the potential fraud by the Middle Eastern company, and applied for the bank to temporarily refuse payment on the grounds of document discrepancies and require the other party to amend the documents. This secured valuable time for the court to review the injunction application. Meanwhile, the team updated the bank on the case filing progress, strengthening the reasonableness of the bank's decision to suspend payment.

   
   

4. Urgently completing guarantee procedures: The lawyer team quickly contacted an insurance company to finalize the guarantee procedures required for the injunction application, ensuring the application materials met the court's requirements.

   
   

In parallel, the lawyer team comprehensively collated case evidence, including the framework contract, orders, L/C texts, on-site evidence of stones in the first batch of goods, and communication records between all parties. They also urgently contacted freight forwarders at the port of shipment and destination for verification, ultimately confirming that the bill of lading for the second batch of orders submitted by the Middle Eastern company was forged—further consolidating the fraud facts.

With sufficient evidence and complete procedures, the court promptly arranged a hearing. On the day after the hearing, the court officially issued the L/C injunction. Upon receiving the injunction, the bank immediately issued a payment refusal message, successfully preventing the disbursement of US$100000 in payment.

In summary, relying on efficient emergency response capabilities, professional legal analysis, and comprehensive process control, Lawyers Larry Zhou and Sara Sun successfully secured the L/C injunction for the client within an extremely short period, safeguarding the payment and effectively protecting the client's legitimate rights and interests.

Civil ruling paper: