The Dream Factory of China

Source :Shenzhen Daily

The Shenzhen Qianhai Cooperation Zone People’s Court released a white paper May 20 on the court’s application of extraterritorial laws in the trials of commercial cases over the past seven years, which fully demonstrated the successful attempts and fruitful results that the court made and achieved to enhance commercial entities’ confidence in investing in Shenzhen and Qianhai.

From February 2015 through this April, a total of 125 commercial cases that met the criteria of applying extraterritorial laws for case trying have been accepted, and thus far 118 have been concluded, impacting a value of more than 900 million yuan (US$135.2 million).

According to the white paper, the cases tried by the Qianhai Court adopting extraterritorial laws involved a wide variety of fields and countries. The fields included financial insurance, loan and financing, cross-border trade, international cargo transportation and warehousing, and the countries included Germany, Japan, Norway, Mongolia, Cambodia, and the British Virgin Islands.

In order to overcome the difficulties of ascertaining extraterritorial laws, the Qianhai Court established systematic rules for the ascertaining of extraterritorial laws and formulated the Measures for Identifying Extraterritorial Laws. These efforts have clarified the specific matters and the reasonable costs involved when ascertaining extraterritorial laws, which made the identification process clearer and faster.

In addition, the court selected and appointed judges and judge assistants who are familiar with common and international laws, international economic and trade rules, and are proficient in foreign languages to hear foreign-related commercial cases involving Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and foreign matters. Since 2016, the Qianhai Court has successively appointed 32 jurors from Hong Kong and 16 mediators from Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and foreign countries. The cultural and professional advantages of the jurors and mediators have been brought into full play to assist judges in accurately finding, understanding and applying extraterritorial laws.