The ongoing legal battle between Sony’s Columbia Pictures and Wanda Kids Cultural Development (a division of Chinese conglom Wanda Group) is picking up pace.

On Wednesday (November 20), a London court judge allowed Columbia’s US$49-million lawsuit—filed in March—to proceed, dismissing Wanda Kids’ claim that it had not been properly served.

Columbia had delivered the claim documents by hand to Wanda’s Hong Kong offices. But Wanda challenged this by arguing that such claims must go through a central registrar under Hong Kong law.

But this week’s ruling indicated that there is no mandatory process outlined in the region for such cases. “It appears that Hong Kong has no objection to the method of transmission for foreign process [that] comprises sending foreign process through the post,” the judgment stated.

The case dates back to 2017, when Wanda Hong Kong agreed to purchase a 51% stake in Vampire Squid Productions, owned by Silvergate Media (which Sony acquired in 2019). Vampire Squid is the holding company for the popular Octonauts (pictured) kids franchise.

Columbia sought to exercise a right from the agreement to offload the remaining 49% of shares with a valuation based on a set price determined by the company’s financial performance. Columbia valued the shares at US$87.4 million.

This price was disputed by Wanda—which noted issues including a US$6-million addition tied to a Netflix license for a season of Octonauts, which the company argued against by stating that this was not part of Vampire Squid’s gross royalties in China. But Columbia’s suit alleges that Wanda did not make its objections clear in a timely manner and also failed to attend to completion of the sale by the scheduled date of February 2024 after the price was dropped to US$49 million.