GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, has sued Nio (蔚来) in a US court, accusing the Chinese electric vehicle maker and executives of violating securities laws by inflating revenues.
The lawsuit, filed in August in the Southern District of New York, named the company, CEO Li Bin and former CFO Feng Wei as defendants. Nio shares dropped as much as 12% in Hong Kong and 9.8% in Singapore on Thu Oct 16.
The suit marks a rare offensive from GIC — the first such action by a sovereign wealth fund against a Chinese company listed outside the country. It’s another blow for Nio, which was once seen as rising star in the EV industry that could eventually rival Tesla but has weathered a bruising EV price war in its home country.
GIC alleged the defendants made “materially false and/or misleading statements” about Nio’s ties to an affiliated company called Nio Battery Asset Co (蔚能 — Weineng) and failed to disclose key facts about its business and finances.
Nio operates a battery subscription model in which car buyers don’t have to purchase batteries outright. Instead, they can pay a recurring fee to access the company’s network of battery-swap stations.
GIC’s suit contended 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 recognised gradually, not all at once.
According to the complaint, those misstatements artificially inflated the value of Nio’s securities, causing GIC to suffer “significant losses.”
The EV maker raised about $1 billion last month through a share sale to fund new models and scale up production, but it has yet to post a profit since its founding in 2014.
Nio was one of several Chinese firms GIC backed as it ramped up efforts to find the next big technology bets based outside of Silicon Valley. The observation that China’s industrial hubs allowed companies to build consumer products with rapidly optimized hardware, software and supply chains — and cutting edge technology at low prices — led the sovereign wealth fund to back companies including Nio and Xiaomi.
GIC’s investments in Nio aren’t the first time it’s faced headwinds in China’s tech space. It had a near-miss after backing Starbucks’ Chinese rival Luckin Coffee through its IPO — though the firm trimmed much of its stake before an accounting scandal sent the company’s stock price plummeting.
GIC is estimated to manage $936 billion in assets by consultancy firm Global SWF. It does not typically disclose the size of individual company investments and it’s unclear how much the fund has lost on Nio so far.
The case has been stayed by a judge as it’s similar to a previous suit filed in 2022 against Nio, according to an Oct. 3 filing.
Nio is known for its battery swap technology, which allows owners to switch out a depleted battery for a new one in minutes. Buyers have the option to purchase a Nio EV without the battery and instead opt for a subscription.
But this business model is capital intensive and has required building out expensive swapping stations, and the company has faced severe liquidity crises.
A 2022 report from New York-based Grizzly Research detailed these accounting practices. Nio said in response that it would launch an independent committee to investigate the claims, according to the court filings.
That led Nio’s American depositary notes to plunge, resulting in substantial losses, GIC’s filing said. The fund is seeking compensation for all losses relating to Nio’s wrongdoing and reasonable reimbursement of its legal costs, according to the documents.
The company said in 2022 that it had completed the review and concluded that the allegations were unsubstantiated.
https://bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-10-16/gic-sues-china-ev-maker-nio-in-us-alleging-it-inflated-revenue?embedded-checkout=true…https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.648479/gov.uscourts.nysd.648479.1.0.pdf…
GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, has sued 
Nio (蔚来) in a US court, accusing the Chinese electric vehicle maker and executives of violating securities laws by inflating revenues.
The lawsuit, filed in August in the Southern District of New York, named the company, CEO Li Bin and former CFO Feng Wei as defendants. Nio shares dropped as much as 12% in Hong Kong and 9.8% in Singapore on Thu Oct 16.
The suit marks a rare offensive from GIC — the first such action by a sovereign wealth fund against a Chinese company listed outside the country. It’s another blow for Nio, which was once seen as rising star in the EV industry that could eventually rival Tesla but has weathered a bruising EV price war in its home country.
GIC alleged the defendants made “materially false and/or misleading statements” about Nio’s ties to an affiliated company called Nio Battery Asset Co (蔚能 — Weineng) and failed to disclose key facts about its business and finances.
Nio operates a battery subscription model in which car buyers don’t have to purchase batteries outright. Instead, they can pay a recurring fee to access the company’s network of battery-swap stations.
GIC’s suit contended 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 recognised gradually, not all at once.
According to the complaint, those misstatements artificially inflated the value of Nio’s securities, causing GIC to suffer “significant losses.”
The EV maker raised about $1 billion last month through a share sale to fund new models and scale up production, but it has yet to post a profit since its founding in 2014.
Nio was one of several Chinese firms GIC backed as it ramped up efforts to find the next big technology bets based outside of Silicon Valley. The observation that China’s industrial hubs allowed companies to build consumer products with rapidly optimized hardware, software and supply chains — and cutting edge technology at low prices — led the sovereign wealth fund to back companies including Nio and Xiaomi.
GIC’s investments in Nio aren’t the first time it’s faced headwinds in China’s tech space. It had a near-miss after backing Starbucks’ Chinese rival Luckin Coffee through its IPO — though the firm trimmed much of its stake before an accounting scandal sent the company’s stock price plummeting.
GIC is estimated to manage $936 billion in assets by consultancy firm Global SWF. It does not typically disclose the size of individual company investments and it’s unclear how much the fund has lost on Nio so far.
The case has been stayed by a judge as it’s similar to a previous suit filed in 2022 against Nio, according to an Oct. 3 filing.
Nio is known for its battery swap technology, which allows owners to switch out a depleted battery for a new one in minutes. Buyers have the option to purchase a Nio EV without the battery and instead opt for a subscription.
But this business model is capital intensive and has required building out expensive swapping stations, and the company has faced severe liquidity crises.
A 2022 report from New York-based Grizzly Research detailed these accounting practices. Nio said in response that it would launch an independent committee to investigate the claims, according to the court filings.
That led Nio’s American depositary notes to plunge, resulting in substantial losses, GIC’s filing said. The fund is seeking compensation for all losses relating to Nio’s wrongdoing and reasonable reimbursement of its legal costs, according to the documents.
The company said in 2022 that it had completed the review and concluded that the allegations were unsubstantiated.
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