‍The US based television maker Vizio sued Chinese firm LeEco for not following through on a 2 billion US dollar merger.

The Chinese technology firm announced its intention to purchase Vizio last July with a deal allegedly including a 100 million US dollar buyer-termination fee.

The merger fell through in April amid LeEco's financial problems, and the two companies then agreed on a joint distribution deal which would have included LeEco's paying 40 million US dollars to Vizio up front, and 10 million US dollars at the closure of the deal with a remaining 50-million-US-dollar investment in the distributions.

Vizio renounced the immediate payment recently after LeEco paid off the first 40 million US dollars, alleging that the Chinese company purposely set up the joint-venture deal in effort to reduce its liability by 60 percent. 

Vizio is now seeking 60 million US dollars in damages through the Santa Ana federal court in the US State of California.

Vizio claims LeEco intended to use the publicly announced merger deal with Vizio to "gain or try to obtain access to Vizio’s large corporate customers and key decision makers thereat for their own purposes and by means of confidential customer information that had been developed" and "provide LeEco with access to Vizuo's confidential customer information, including contact information, account history, purchasing needs or requirements, contract terms, and the like.”

Meanwhile, the US company has experienced financial crisis for leaking confidential viewing data. 

In February this year, Vizio was ordered to pay 2.2 million US dollars to settle charges by US Federal Trade Commission and the Office of the New Jersey Attorney General for selling secretly collected user data to the third parties.

LeEco has not commented on the lawsuit thus far.

The lawsuit comes just days after Shangahi court froze assets worth 182 million US dollars, including LeEco stock belonging to former CEO Jia Yueting, his wife and three LeEco affiliates, leading to even more outstanding payments to their employees.

At the end of May this year, Jia resigned as CEO and the company continued to struggle with "regulatory headwinds," cash crunch and bumpiness into the US market. 

Besides the decision to abandon its plan to acquire Vizio, LeEco also nixed its video service EcoPass in the same month.