GreenergyDaily

Oct. 16, 2025

Singapore's sovereign wealth fund has sued Nio Inc. in a US court for allegedly inflating revenues in a rare litigious move, dealing another blow to the Chinese electric vehicle maker struggling to maintain its footing in the country's fiercely competitive autos sector.

The lawsuit, filed in August in the Southern District of New York, named the company, Chief Executive Officer Li Bin and former Chief Financial Officer Feng Wei as defendants, alleging that they made misleading statements that artificially inflated the value of Nio's securities, causing "significant losses" to GIC.

Nio shares dropped as much as 13% in Hong Kong and Singapore on Thursday, as news of the legal action ignited doubts over the company's outlook and its ability to raise more funds.

The lawsuit marks a unusual offensive from GIC, which has rarely sued over soured investments. Caixin reported that it's the first such action by a sovereign wealth fund against a Chinese company listed outside the country.

The allegations center around an affiliated company called Nio Battery Asset Co. — or Weineng in Chinese — and its role in Nio's famous battery subscription model that allows car buyers to avoid purchasing batteries outright. Instead, they can pay a recurring fee to access the company's network of battery-swap stations.

GIC's suit contends that Weineng's financial records show it bought batteries upfront from Nio, allowing Nio to immediately record the full revenue from those sales — even though the end users hadn't yet paid for the batteries. The filing argued that such income should have been recognized gradually, not all at once.