A female entrepreneur in Hebei questioned bidding fraud and was found acquitted in a court retrial
Beijing News (Reporter Wang Wei) Zhang Yan, a female entrepreneur in Hebei, questioned the crime of bidding fraud and was accused of extortion. After being found not guilty in the first instance, the prosecution filed a protest. The Qinhuangdao Intermediate People's Court found that Zhang Yan constituted a crime and sentenced to 3 years in prison. After that, the Hebei Provincial Higher People's Court sent the case back for retrial on the grounds of "subjective and deliberate ambiguity" of Zhang Yan's extortion crime.
On the 23rd, the Qinhuangdao Intermediate People's Court made a ruling, dismissing the prosecution's protest, and upholding the previous verdict that Zhang Yan did not constitute a crime of extortion.
Court ruling.
At 8 o'clock on the 23rd, the Qinhuangdao Intermediate Court pronounced on the case of Hebei female entrepreneur Zhang Yan.
The court ruled that Zhang Yan's behavior did not constitute a crime.
According to the court's retrial ruling, Zhang Yan, based on the company's interests, based on the content of the "Procurement Pre-Bid-Winning Results Announcement", to challenge the bidding unit, which is an exercise of legal rights and conforms to relevant laws and regulations and is not inappropriate.
Zhang Yan's questioning was not made public and did not want others to know about the matter, so it cannot be determined that she deliberately asked for money from others on the grounds of questioning.
Although Zhang Yan performed certain coercive behaviors in the process of asking for money, the evidence in the case cannot rule out that Zhang Yan's original intention was to ask for the creditor's rights that she thought was due.
Whether the creditor's right is reasonable or not is disputed by both parties. Therefore, it cannot be determined that Zhang Yan's subjective purpose is to illegally occupy other people's money and that her behavior does not meet the subjective requirements of the crime of extortion.
Based on this, the court did not support the prosecution's protest.
After the verdict was pronounced, Zhang Yan’s defense lawyer Zhu Xiaoding said that Zhang Yan and her company’s top priority is to restore the company’s vitality.
Zhang Yan, who has been in custody for 921 days, will also apply for state compensation.
The Beijing News previously reported that when Zhang Yan participated in a company's bidding and procurement, she questioned other companies' suspected bidding and collusion.
The boss of the winning company communicated with Zhang Yan, asking her to withdraw the challenge and agree to pay her 1.2 million yuan in compensation.
After Zhang Yan successfully claimed compensation, on November 15, 2018, she was sued to court on suspicion of racketeering.
On March 18, 2019, the court ruled that Zhang Yan was not guilty in the first instance.
Subsequently, the prosecution filed a protest. In March 2020, the Qinhuangdao Intermediate Court revised the verdict of the second instance and revoked the first-instance verdict. Zhang Yan was sentenced to 3 years in prison for extortion. On September 4, the Hebei Provincial Higher Court declared a “subjective On the grounds of “unclear facts”, it was ruled to send the case back for retrial.