It’s been the chatter on various forums for a short while now, with Colin Guinn vanishing from DJI there’s been speculation as to the reason.  The injunction suggests the relationship between Colin and DJI Global has fallen apart following a refusal to sell his stake holding.

It became clear there was a serious legal dispute on the 22nd of January 2014 when Colin took out an injunction against DJI Global to prevent them from supplying new stock to 31 authorised DJI retailers/resellers in the United States.

Colin is a 48% share holder in Dajiang North America Ltd with Tao “Frank” Wang owning the remaining 52% share holding, Tao is the CEO of DJI Global.  In the US the company recently assumed the names of DJI and DJI Innovations.  It is argued that Dajiang North America Ltd was in effect DJI for the North American market, as opposed to say a mere wholesaler, hence the injunction refers to the company as DJI North America.

The allegation made include that:

In May 2013, DJI Global approached Colin offering to buy out his 48% interest in Dajiang North America Ltd (in effect DJI North America) in exchange for a 0.3% in DJI Global, Colin immediately rejected the offer because he felt it undervalued his interested in DJI North America.  The percentage on offer was described as miniscule, with DJI Global being alleged to have offered no detail on percentage other than saying it “felt right in their hearts” and it is further alleged if the offer was refused DJI Global would simply render DJI North America worthless.

Despite the rejection of the offer by Colin to buy out his interest, to facilitate a future sale so that DJI North America could become a wholly-owned subsidiary of DJI Global, DJI North America gave access to their computer systems and accounts to provide greater transparency.  Albeit with Tao Wang being a 52% shareholder, such access surely could not have been refused?

The injunction goes on to say around the 11th of November 2013, DJI Global sent an internal communication about “clearing” Colin from DJI.

It is alleged following this actions took place including:

a) Misappropriating all the revenue in DJI North America’s account without providing DJI North America anything in exchange.

b) Scraping DJI North America’s videos from YouTube and Vimeo and placing them on DJI Global’s website, treating those videos as if DJI Global created them.

c) Providing UAVs secretly to DJI North America’s customers while misrepresenting to DJI North America that there was a backlog in production.

d) Cutting of DJI North America’s visibility to its own revenue account.

e) Contacting all of DJI North America’s customers while mispresenting to DJI North America that there was a backlog in production.

f) Disabling DJI North America’s access to both its Facebook and Twitter accounts.

g) Seeking to liquidate all of DJI North America’s physical assets in the Travis County office.

Businesswire has reported on the injunction: http://www.businesswire.com/news/elpasotimes/20140128006692/en

The full details of the injunction are attached and are a PDF copy taken from a post on the DJI Phantom Owners Page on Facebook.

Click to read the injunction in full: DJI Injunction

Update 1st August 2014: This matter has been settled out of court: http://www.uavhive.com/2014/08/01/dji-colin-guinn-settle-out-of-court/