A travel agency found liable in a traffic collision that left seven people injured and one dead now says its reputation has been damaged and is taking its own legal action against the lawyer of some of the victims.

Last month, the Shanghai Jing'an District People's Court ordered Shanghai CYTS Tour Corporation to pay damages totaling 840,000 yuan (US$103,580) to the family injured during a ski tour last January.

The company is now appealing to a higher court, but it has also filed a counter lawsuit against lawyer Huang Rongnan for comments he made during a television programme in April. Huang represented a family of three of the injured tourists in the bus crash.

"Huang Rongnan said something irresponsible during a TV interview, which has seriously injured the agency's reputation," said Wu Peidong, the travel agency's lawyer.

The family was travelling with 13 other people in a bus in Heilongjiang Province when it crashed with another car.

The driver of the bus, Song Danyang, was killed and seven people were hurt. Among them was Wu Bin, who can no longer use his left arm, his wife Fang Yufeng, who was disfigured, and their 10-year-old daughter, who suffered a hipbone fracture.

Police blamed the accident on Song, the bus driver, but Wu and his family sued CYTS after failing to get the compensation they sought.

The tour had been organized by CYTS, which subcontracted the actual operations to the Harbin Dongbeifeng Travel Company. The Harbin company had hired Song through Harbin Shunda Service Company.

The television interview in question took place in April. At the time, Huang said the accident was a direct result of the complex subcontracting method used by CYTS which left an inexperienced driver in charge of one of its tour buses. Song had only two years' driving experience. Tourist bus drivers are required to have five years of experience.

CYTS disputed the charge, saying they were not ultimately responsible for who drives the bus.

"What Huang said in the interview was totally untrue," said Wu.

"Shanghai CYTS only subcontracted the business to Harbin Dongbeifeng, who then rented a bus from Shunda... And Song was one of the business partners of Shunda."

Wu said the interview aired just before May 1, the busy national holiday, and caused great damage to the company's public image.

The agency now wants the Huang to publicly apologize on the same TV programme.

But Huang's own lawyer, Zhu Hui, said the chain of subcontracting speaks for itself.

"After being subcontracted to Harbin Dongbeifeng, the business was again subcontracted to Harbin Shunda Service Company, who subcontracted it to Song Danyang," Zhu said. "And Shunda is not qualified to run a travel business."

(China Daily September 16, 2005)