BlockBeats news, on October 31, according to The Paper, in April 2021, Hang purchased a “mining machine” platform and 64 hard drives from Chen through WeChat, for a total of 429,000 yuan. After paying the full payment, Hang asked Chen about the equipment configuration, but Chen shied away and failed to fulfill his delivery obligations. Later, Hang asked the other party to refund part of the payment of 180,000 yuan and continued to send 64 hard drives. After Chen returned the 180,000 yuan, the goods were still not delivered. Hang filed a petition with the court, requesting the court to order the defendant Chen to return the payment of 249,000 yuan and pay Loss of interest.
The court held that the focus of the dispute in this case was whether the contract was valid and whether the defendant should return the corresponding money and interest losses. After review, the WeChat chat content between Hang and Chen can prove that there is a sales relationship between the two parties and the sales contract is established. On September 3, 2021, the National Development and Reform Commission and other departments jointly issued the “Notice on Regulating Virtual Currency “Mining” Activities”, clarifying that such “mining” activities consume large amounts of energy and carbon emissions and are not conducive to the optimization of the national industrial structure and Energy conservation and emission reduction are not conducive to achieving the goals of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality as scheduled, and should be comprehensively rectified. On September 15, 2021, the People’s Bank of China, the Cyberspace Administration of China, the Supreme People’s Court and other departments issued the “Notice on Further Preventing and Dealing with the Risks of Speculation in Virtual Currency Transactions”, defining virtual currency-related business activities as illegal financial activities, and any If legal persons, unincorporated organizations and natural persons invest in virtual currencies and related derivatives and violate public order and good customs, the relevant civil legal actions will be invalid, and the resulting losses shall be borne by themselves. Therefore, Hang purchased a “mining machine” from Chen and calculated the “mining” activity of producing virtual currencies. The contract involved was an illegal financial activity and violated public order and good customs and should be deemed invalid, so Chen should return the payment. It was then ruled that Chen should return the payment of 249,000 yuan to Hang within 30 days from the date of the judgment taking effect.
Chen appealed against the verdict. The court of second instance held that: the original instance found that the formation of a sales contract relationship between the two parties was not inappropriate; the legal sales contract relationship is protected by law, but the contract involved in the case violated public order and good customs, and was not in compliance with the basic principles of conserving resources and protecting the environment. In principle, it should be an invalid contract, and the payment for the goods that Chen took possession of Hang based on the invalid contract should be returned. The first-instance judgment found the facts clearly and applied the law correctly, so it dismissed the appeal and upheld the original judgment.