Court backs owner in ‘stolen ring’ dispute
Print Edition
THE local branch of Chopard — a Swiss luxury watch, jewelry and accessories company — has been ordered to return an allegedly stolen sapphire ring to a customer who had taken it in for cleaning, the Jing’an District People’s Court said yesterday.
The court said since the company had refused to serve the customer, surnamed Yu, it should return the ring to her due to termination of their contract.
According to the court, Yu’s husband Chen bought the sapphire ring as gift for his wife from two scalpers for HK$700,000 (US$90,320) at a jewelry exhibition in Hong Kong in March last year. Yu, wanting to make sure it was a real Chopard, sent the ring to Chopard’s Shanghai branch, ordering a cleaning service in July.
However, a Chopard employee noticed that the number of the ring was identical to the one stolen from Chopard’s Vienna outlet in 2013 and reported it to police, having confirmed with the Chopard headquarters that it was the lost one. But police refused to accept the case because the ring was not stolen in China.
While awaiting orders from headquarters, Chopard’s Shanghai branch lied to Yu that her ring had been mistakenly sent to Switzerland for repairs. When Yu and Chen returned for the ring three days later, staffers and security guards told them about the stolen ring and initially refused to let them leave. Yu then filed a lawsuit in court.
Claiming that she was not at fault for obtaining the ring, Yu said it was unreasonable for the company to violate their contract and keep her ring.
The company defended its stance, citing that the stolen ring was worth 1.26 million yuan (US$199,000) in China’s mainland while Yu’s husband had paid HK$700,000, which was obviously much lower than the market price and therefore couldn’t been considered legal.
The court, however, ruled that after Yu sent the ring to the company and got a receipt, the two sides had a contractual relationship. Since the dispute over the ownership of the ring led to the company’s failure to fulfill the contract, the contract should be terminated and the ring should be returned to Yu because its ownership had not been transferred.
If the company thought Yu’s ownership of the ring was illegal, it should file a separate lawsuit, the court added.
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