HungryPanda has won an A$24.6m (£11.7m) payout in London’s High Court after it successfully argued that a company it acquired in Australia had broken its contract by withholding critical assets and violated non-compete terms by entering into talks with a competitor.
The London-headquartered Asian food delivery service bought Easi, a food and grocery delivery platform based in Melbourne, in late 2021 to give it a leadership position in the Australian market.
But after receiving an initial sum worth $45.2m in December 2021, the owners of the acquired business withheld IT assets from HungryPanda vital to Easi’s operation – including accounts, passwords and software security information – in a dispute over the terms of the asset purchase agreement, according to court filings.
Eric Liu, HungryPanda’s CEO and founder, told the court he believed Easi’s owners were trying to “unilaterally enforce” changes to the agreement. HungryPanda only gained control of the most important Easi assets in February, after winning an urgent interim injunction requiring their transfer.
The two-month delay in which HungryPanda was “unable to exercise any control” over Easi’s IT systems proved massively disruptive to Easi’s business, according to Liu, with a 30% drop in order volumes, and 60% of its employees quitting, along with many contractors.
Without the assets, HungryPanda was “unable to do anything to remedy the situation, or preserve the goodwill of the business it has acquired, let alone transition it into the HungryPanda brand as intended”, Liu said.
When the assets were finally transferred, “very large volumes” of data had been deleted, including 81% of the data in Easi’s Microsoft Exchange system, according to court documents.
The enforced transfer of Easi’s most crucial assets also revealed its owners were secretly in discussion with HungryPanda’s top global competitor, Fantuan, a Canadian food delivery platform focused on Asian cuisine.
Beginning in November 2021, Easi’s owners had been liaising with Fantuan to help the latter establish an Australian business, using key assets later sold to HungryPanda under the purchase agreement, according to documents seen by the court.
Non-binding agreements between Easi and a Canadian holding company owned by Fantuan, dated to January 2022, set out a cash and equity deal to buy Easi, providing it terminated its sale agreement with HungryPanda.
Fantuan agreed to reimburse 50% of Easi Global Ltd’s expenses in the event its termination of the sale agreement was challenged by HungryPanda.
A further document revealed plans for a new joint venture, formed between Fantuan Canada and a party allegedly connected to Easi, with initial investment of A$15m each.
The case was heard uncontested in the London court, as each of the four defendants – Easi Australia director Yan Liu, its founder, Jie Shen, Easi Global Ltd, and Chongqing Meikelaifuyireer Technology Co Ltd (Easi China) – were debarred from defending the claim after they had failed to comply with an earlier court order. Yan Liu and Easi Global attended the trial with their solicitors Duan & Duan.
“Integrity has no borders,” said HungryPanda’s Liu following the judgment, declaring the company would continue to pursue “appropriate legal avenues” in Australia over Fantuan’s responsibilities.
Liu added he was proud of his team’s professionalism throughout the three-year process.
“This ruling is meaningful for HungryPanda,” he said. “During the acquisition, we encountered serious trust issues from Easi and Fantuan, which led to significant operational disruption and uncertainty. However, we chose to stay true to our principles and acted through legal channels to protect the interests of the company and our stakeholders.
“This case reminds us that trust and responsibility are the foundations of sustainable growth. We thank the UK court for its fair judgment, and we remain committed to doing what is right – for our users and for the communities we serve.”
HungryPanda was founded in London in 2017, and by the time of the Easi acquisition was operating in more than 60 cities across the UK, France, Italy, the US, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea and Singapore. Since then, it has added a further 20 cities to its books, working with a network of over 100,000 merchants.
The delivery service turned over $183m worldwide in 2024, up 25% from $146.5m in 2023. Grocery sales through its PandaFresh grocery arm, a “major area of strategic focus” according to Companies House accounts, came to $22.9m, up 36% from $16.9m the year before.
The delivery service launched PandaFresh in 2023, and recently secured a partnership with AliExpress to supply groceries for the Chinese e-commerce giant’s new one-hour delivery service, which will launch in Greater London in July.
In September 2024, HungryPanda raised £44m in refinancing and new funding, led by Singapore-based tech fund Mars Growth Capital, to accelerate its expansion into the US.
The Grocer has reached out to Duan & Duan and Fantuan Canada for comment.
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