20k Romoss power banks auctioned off by court, sold at 30% off

Ask AI · Why have Romoss power banks been pulled into a judicial auction storm?

IT Home reports on April 8 that the Alibaba Assets judicial auction platform shows that a batch of power banks, charging cables, and other assets under Shenzhen Huazhongke Xin Materials Technology Co., Ltd. will go up for auction on April 19, with a starting bid of 2.05M yuan. The company’s controlling shareholder is Shenzhen Romoss Technology Co., Ltd., and the power banks and other assets being auctioned are all Romoss-branded.

The auction notice shows that the items being auctioned this time include:

• 147,478 MUI charging cables, with an appraised value of about 8B yuan;
• 20,560 portable power banks, with an appraised value of about 1.31M yuan;
• 8,766 car chargers, with an appraised value of about 146k yuan;
• 6,215 charging heads, with an appraised value of about 99k yuan;
• Items such as magnetic-adsorption rings, small fans, bubble bags, mouse pads, and more.

From the images disclosed on the auction platform, the relevant auction items are piled up across a warehouse. The outer packaging of the power banks and charging cables bears the text “Romoss.” The starting bid for this auction is 1.29M yuan, the appraised value is about 2.9298 million yuan, which is roughly a 30% discount.

As of the time IT Home published this article, there are 0 bidders registered for the auction, and 11 people have set reminders.

Romoss has previously run into a series of issues due to the risk of fire and explosions with its power banks, including bans by universities, recalls of older products, airline prohibitions, and employees demanding unpaid wages.

According to case details released by the State Administration for Market Regulation in January this year, Shenzhen Romoss Technology Co., Ltd. without obtaining compulsory certification certificates for the relevant power bank models, unlawfully commissioned the production and sales of power bank products. At the same time, knowing that some power bank battery cells’ capacity had degraded—when the actual battery capacity no longer met 10000mAh—the company still made false labeling in prominent places on its products. The company’s conduct violated relevant provisions of the Regulations on Certification and Accreditation, the Regulations on the Administration of Compulsorily Certified Products, and the Anti–Unfair Competition Law of the People’s Republic of China. The local market regulation authorities have imposed administrative penalties on the company in accordance with the law.

During the investigation and handling of this case, the State Administration for Market Regulation increased overall coordination and guidance, supervised major cases through listing and oversight, and simultaneously, through a “point-to-line-to-area” approach, deployed and arranged for the related battery cell production enterprises and certification bodies involved in this case to be investigated and handled together according to the law.