From the Shanghai Daily:
The dispute between Wahaha Group and France's Groupe Danone escalated as assets of 10 foreign-registered companies under Wahaha were frozen at the request of Danone.
This follows similar action in Samoa and BVI. Danone's litigators are an aggressive bunch, aren't they? Well organized, too.
For all my old clients that have come to me about disputes with local Chinese companies and have been puzzled when I ask "You know if they have any offshore assets?" – check out this case, and you'll figure out why I wanted to know.
Note that there are two reasons for this offshore action: 1) identify and protect assets for future enforcement; and 2) make sure that assets from somewhere else (e.g. PRC) that may be targets of the current dispute are not moved offshore into one of these corporations.
I wish Danone's litigators well. Dispute resolution is not easy under the best of circumstances, and dealing with PRC assets is not fun at all. You have a still-developing financial and accounting system, close proximity to a financial hub like Hong Kong, public and private corruption, need I go on?