As a lawyer who has been concerned about private lending litigation cases for a long time, the author recently received a call from a former client, Xiao Zhang. This time, the customer Xiao Zhang consulted for his lover on a loan-related case. He sent me a copy of the Supreme Court's civil ruling, the facts of the case and the judgment are as follows:
1. From September 2016 to September 2020, the plaintiff used the "investment" service function of the Jiufu Puhui platform by registering the "Wukong Finance" APP, and was matched by the defendant Jiufu Company to lend a total of multiple sums of money.
2. In the lending process, the plaintiff needs to sign the relevant agreements and documents including the "Lending Consulting and Management Service Agreement" with the defendant by clicking "Agree and Confirm the Lending".
3. As of November 30, 2020, the plaintiff's account still showed that the principal and interest of the loan of RMB 43,432.89 could not be repaid.
4. The plaintiff filed a lawsuit in this case, requesting that Jiufu Company be ordered to repay the principal and interest of the loan of 43,432.89 yuan.
5. The plaintiff argued that it recharged its own funds to the bank's depository account, and Jiufu Company lent the funds to an unspecified third party; Jiufu Company did not obtain a financial license issued by the state, did not provide risk warnings, and did not provide borrower information to the plaintiff; The two sides reached an agreement on private lending.
6. Jiufu Company believes that the two parties are in a legal relationship of intermediary services.
7. The court ruled against the plaintiff.
Xiao Zhang consulted with the author: his lover also lent more than 20 yuan on a similar P2P platform in the above ruling a few years ago, and then he has not returned the money, and he wants to know if he can sue the platform to get the money back. After understanding the lending situation of Xiao Zhang's family, the author gave a preliminary suggestion, first of all, to determine whether the platform lent is a compliant P2P, if it is a compliant P2P platform that does not involve capital pools and self-financing, the payment collection method is generally issued by the platform according to the creditor's rights. As an emerging type of online lending, through the online loan information intermediary, that is, the P2P platform, the lender and the borrower are matched to establish a creditor's rights relationship, and after the borrower defaults, the lender often finds it difficult for the lender to clarify the creditor's rights relationship, and some lenders believe that "the money is lent through the platform, and the platform will repay the money now". However, this demand is often not met under the rule of law system that "pays attention to facts and legal basis". Just like the judgment provided by Xiao Zhang, the Supreme People's Court made it clear that Jiufu Company was an intermediary service provider providing loan information services, and the relationship between it and the plaintiff was an intermediary contract. Based on the above analysis, the plaintiff's claim that the establishment of a private lending relationship between the plaintiff and Jiufu Company lacked factual and legal basis, and this court rejected the plaintiff's claim that Jiufu Company should bear the responsibility of repaying principal and interest to it.
The borrower, as the payee, should undoubtedly bear the responsibility of repayment, and the platform, as the intermediary, should also bear the responsibility of assisting in the active collection of creditor's rights. Nowadays, platforms such as Jiufu are making every effort to promote localized legal reminders, launching precise collections and legal actions against overdue borrowers, and achieving one-to-one collection and accountability. Lenders should intervene as soon as possible, which is the same as the previous platform selection channel, and the lenders selected earlier can better select better quality claims for repayment.