In December 2020, the Fuzhou Intermediate People’s Court issued a jurisdictional ruling in the unfair competition lawsuit filed by Douyin against Tencent. The court held that jurisdiction over the case should be vested in the court of the place where the agreement was executed, in accordance with the developer agreements for WeChat and QQ. In light of the amount in dispute, the case was ordered to be transferred to the Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court for trial.

Douyin filed an appeal against this jurisdictional ruling with the Fujian Higher People’s Court in February 2021. The Fujian Higher People’s Court accepted the appeal and placed the case on its docket.

On September 17, 2019, the operating companies of Douyin had initiated an unfair competition action against the relevant companies of Tencent. Douyin contended that Tencent, through technical means, had restricted users from freely sharing Douyin content on WeChat, WeChat Moments, QQ and Qzone. Since other similar platforms, including Weishi, WeTV and Kuaishou, had not been subject to such restrictions, Douyin claimed that Tencent’s conduct constituted unfair competition.

On February 7, 2021, prominent procedural law experts, including Professor Zhang Weiping of Tsinghua University Law School and President of the Procedural Law Research Society of the China Law Society, held a seminar on the case in Beijing. The experts opined that Douyin’s claim was founded on the right to claim under the Anti-Unfair Competition Law. For a lawsuit based on such a right, jurisdiction should be determined in accordance with the rules governing tort disputes, and the Fuzhou Intermediate People’s Court therefore had jurisdiction, meaning the case should not be transferred.