Chinese beverage giant Wahaha has accused French joint venture partner Groupe Danone of trying to force a buy-out by filing a lawsuit in the United States against two subsidiaries of Wahaha.

Shan Qining, the Wahaha spokesman, told Xinhua that Danone wanted to pressure Zong Qinghou, founder and board chairman of the Wahaha, to surrender to a minimum-price takeover of Wahaha.

Danone filed a lawsuit on Monday in the Los Angeles-based Superior Court against the Ever Maple Trading Ltd. and Hangzhou Hongsheng Beverage Co Ltd., and two individuals related to these companies, Danone said in a statement on Tuesday.

According to the statement, Ever Maple Trading Ltd. is the controlling shareholder of Hangzhou Hongsheng Beverage, which is the parent company of Hangzhou Wahaha Food and Beverage Sales Co., Danone's joint venture partner in China.

"Zong and his Wahaha company will only become stronger in the face of such pressure," Shan Qining said.

A lawyer for Wahaha said the company had not received legal notification of the lawsuit.

The Danone statement said Hangzhou Wahaha was involved in illegally selling products identical to those sold by the companies' joint ventures, and illegally using supplier and distributor resources of the joint ventures to carry out its own business operations.

Danone said it aimed to stop the defendants using wrongful means to interfere with Danone's customer relationships and business prospects.

Danone said the lawsuit was filed in Los Angeles because that is the location of Ever Maple's registered address.

No Danone managers were immediately available for comment on the lawsuit.

Wu Yongmin, an expert on economic law at Zhejiang University, said Danone chose to file a lawsuit in a third country in an apparent aim to avoid interference from the Chinese side, and to increase costs and difficulties for the defendants.

The board room dispute spilled into the open last month after Zong publicly rejected an acquisition offer worth four billion yuan by Danone for the joint venture's remaining assets.

Danone said that under the 1996 joint venture contract, Wahaha was prohibited from using the Wahaha brand to create new business that excludes the French company which owns a 51-percent stake of the venture.

Zong said the agreement, with an article restricting Wahaha's independent expansion and signed by both sides, was never approved by China's trademark office and so was invalid and unenforceable, and the article actually only allowed the joint venture to use the brand name of Wahaha rather than own it.

The dispute became increasingly complex as both sides blamed each other for damaging the interests of the joint venture.

Danone claims Wahaha has set up a series of independent companies that compete with products made by the joint venture. Wahaha says Danone has done even greater damage by investing tens of millions of yuan in competing beverage makers, including Wahaha's biggest rival Guangdong Robust and the country's largest liquid milk producer Mengniu Dairy.

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