Beijing court records published online yesterday show that last November, rental bike company Ofo owed two suppliers almost RMB 150 million (around $22 million) after defaulting on payments.
The former investor favorite has been struggling to pay off its debts, and the recently unveiled rulings hint at the magnitude of what it owes. Both cases—one leveled by Tianjin’s Fulande Bicycle Group and the other by Shanghai-based Phoenix Bicycle—were accepted by courts in June 2018, which ruled on the cases on Nov. 13 of the same year. The courts’ decisions were publicized online on Wednesday, instructing Ofo to repay its creditors.
Ofo’s parent company, Dongxia Datong Management and Consulting, was ordered to deliver late payments, as well as a fine for breach of contract, to bike parts supplier Fulande within 10 days. The repayments total more than RMB 70 million, and the fine almost RMB 8 million. Phoenix, which sold bicycle frames to Ofo, also won its case against the rental bike operator. Dongxia Datong was required to pay back RMB 68 million in addition to interest, also within the same time frame.
This year alone, Ofo’s parent company has failed to pay court-mandated fines for 48 cases of payment default, according to Chinese enterprise intelligence platform Qichacha.com. TechNode was not able to confirm this number due to the lack of availability of online court records.
Both Ofo and its CEO Dai Wei were blacklisted by the government last December for defaulting on debts. Dai is prohibited from purchasing high-end goods and services, including various types of airline and railway travel, among others.
Meanwhile, millions of users are still waiting to be reimbursed for deposits totaling between RMB 99 and RMB 199 per person. As of last December, more than 10 million users had applied for refunds. In February, an Ofo user who applied for a refund in mid-December claimed his queue number was still over 6.98 million, a Shandong province TV channel reported (in Chinese).