Brad presents a great little case on China Business Law Blog of a guy suing a travel agency. Nice case study with some big picture lessons to be learned.

More consumers are choosing to exercise their legal rights and are not afraid of doing so in courts. Mr. Ma represents one of those individuals that do not let a wrongdoer walk free without putting up a fight.

Absolutely correct. We have seen litigation in China ramp up considerably in recent years. Consumer disputes are becoming extremely common. This is generally minor stuff, with fairly small amounts in controversy. In a lot of instances, I think the plaintiff is bringing the matter forward because they feel cheated – that's a big motivator.

Consumer-driven litigation can have a profound effect on society and really push the private sector to be more responsible on the one hand, and get the government more involved in oversight of business activities on the other hand. Look at the career of Ralph Nader (at least before he started his political aspirations), and you'll get an idea of the potential here. There are political complications with consumer advocates, however, and I therefore do not think of "consumer advocacy" and "consumer litigation" in the same way at all.

The main point of Brad's post is slightly more technical and has to do with conflicts between administrative regulations and laws. In this case you had an administrative regulation dealing with the travel industry that was in conflict with China's Contract Law. The court went with the latter, although whether this represents a growing sophistication among the judiciary in dealing with conflicts of law, as Brad suggests, or is just another ad hoc decision, I couldn't tell you.

One final note, on damages. I always tell clients that are involved in dispute resolution that the system here is formal and conservative, and that solid documentation is absolutely central to damage calculations. This case is a great example. The judge went with a calculation based on what appears to be a simple total of the documented fees involved in the dispute, which happen to have been admission tickets to sites, accommodation fees, etc. In other words, fees whose amounts could be easily determined by solid evidence.