Legal information

Regarding cases of optimizing the business environment, the first case is a case in which a certain Chinese vocational and technical school sued a certain city’s Human Resources and Social Security Bureau for the performance of an agreement. Administrative agreement, what is an administrative agreement? According to the provisions of the Supreme People's Court on several issues concerning administrative agreement cases, Article 1 stipulates that an administrative agreement is an agreement entered into by an administrative agency with citizens, legal persons, and other organizations to achieve the goals of administrative management or public services and that has a relationship of rights and obligations under administrative law. It is an administrative agreement. We have said a lot before that the premise of an administrative agreement is a relevant agreement entered into with our administrative counterpart for the purpose of administrative management and completing administrative management or public services.

The following case talks about a training agreement signed between a school and the Bureau of Human Resources and Social Security. The relevant agreement stipulates that the school will conduct relevant training, and then the Bureau of Human Resources and Social Security will be responsible for declaring the relevant expenses and paying the training fees to the school. However, it was not fulfilled in the end, which involved the implementation of the agreement.

Regarding the implementation of the agreement, in practice, many administrative departments fail to perform the administrative agreement in accordance with the provisions of the agreement. In this case, how do we protect our legitimate rights and interests? If the administrative agency fails to fulfill the administrative agreement, how can we protect our rights? Let’s take a look at the basic facts of this case.

A Chinese school mainly provides skills training for disadvantaged groups and people with disabilities. The school signed a training agreement with the local Human Resources and Social Security Bureau, stipulating that Party B's school will complete the GSP training indicators for the Human Resources and Social Security Bureau. Party A's Human Resources and Social Security Bureau will assist Party B to apply for full training fees in a timely manner based on the number of people undergoing GSP training and assessment and the training fees per person for various occupations during the training period. Afterwards, the school completed the training tasks in accordance with the agreement, and the Bureau of Human Resources and Social Security also applied for financial training subsidies based on the school's training results. However, after the Bureau of Human Resources and Social Security received relevant training subsidies, it has not paid the more than 2 million training fees that should be given to the school. The school can only sue in court.

According to the provisions of the Supreme People's Court on several issues regarding administrative agreements, including the relevant provisions of the Administrative Litigation Law, it is clearly stipulated that if an administrative agency fails to perform the agreement in an administrative agreement, it can file a lawsuit in court to require the administrative agency to perform the administrative agreement. Under normal circumstances, the party requesting performance has fully fulfilled its obligations in accordance with the provisions of the agreement. If it requires the other party's administrative agency to perform its obligations, it should generally be able to obtain support. Of course, there will definitely be some legal judgments, such as whether the administrative counterpart has performed the agreement in full accordance with the agreement, and what are the reasons for the administrative agency's failure to perform the agreement? Is it because of objective inability to perform or subjective breach of contract? These all require judgment.

For situations where performance cannot be performed objectively, are there other corresponding compensation and other measures to deal with it? If it is judged that the agreement cannot be performed, then there is no need to perform the agreement, or if the agreement can be performed, should the administrative agency be required to perform the agreement? This is all based on the provisions of the law and the circumstances of the case, and then the final decision is made.

The situation in this case is that the administrative agency did not perform the agreement and the training fees were not paid. An application was made to the relevant agency, and the Human Resources and Social Security Bureau intercepted the payment. Therefore, based on the ruling, the court held in the first instance that the agreement signed by the Human Resources and Social Security Bureau and the school was an administrative agreement. The school has fulfilled all training obligations in accordance with the agreement. As the client, the Human Resources and Social Security Bureau has applied for the GSP subsidy and should pay it in accordance with the agreement. It cannot forcefully occupy the training fees and delay the payment of training funds.

Because this is a breach of contract and a subjective breach of contract. Knowing that there was an agreement and that the other party had already fulfilled it, and that the Bureau of Human Resources and Social Security should and could fulfill it, he deliberately delayed and failed to fulfill it. In this case, he was asked to give the training money to the school. If it is a failure to perform legal duties, it will be determined that not only training funds but also interest will be paid to compensate for the loss of funds.

For subjective breach of contract, corresponding punitive measures must be taken. Not only the training fee must be paid, but the interest during the period must also be paid to the other party. Therefore, it is determined that the school training fee and interest must be paid. This case was included in the top ten typical cases of administrative trials for legalized business environment construction in Liaoning Court in 2020.

When announcing a typical case, the Liaoning Court concluded that the typical significance of the case is that when administrative agencies sign agreements with private enterprises, they should be protected in accordance with the law, and administrative agencies should follow the principles of keeping promises and being honest and trustworthy. When signing an agreement with an administrative counterpart, although the administrative agency has corresponding powers, it cannot breach the contract in bad faith and must abide by the agreement signed with the administrative counterpart.

Administrative agencies not only have the obligation to perform administrative agreements, but also have related responsibilities to realize the orientation of building honest and rule-of-law administration, to keep promises and to optimize the local business environment.

The school in this case, as the counterparty to the administrative agreement, won the lawsuit and recovered its losses. As business owners, we should promptly take legal measures to safeguard our legitimate rights and interests. From this case, we can see that when encountering administrative litigation and other similar issues, if you have a dispute with an administrative department, you must seek judicial relief in a timely manner, and find a breakthrough to solve the problem and protect your rights and interests through professional analysis and evidence sorting by lawyers. The litigation process may be very difficult and tortuous, but the final result of this case still allows the legitimate rights and interests of the parties to be protected. Lawyer Ying Ting also reminds all parties involved that when encountering such problems, they must consult us in time. After analysis, they should understand the laws and regulations, policy basis, and similar case handling ideas before making a decision, so as not to miss the best opportunity to protect their rights and interests and cause irreparable losses to themselves.

The legal knowledge in this article does not represent legal advice. If you encounter similar problems, you should analyze them in detail.