FTZ court cases climb as innovation grows

Cases being heard regarding the city’s free trade zone have grown 30.5 times in number over the past five years, Shanghai's Higher People’s Court said Monday.

Between September 2013 and August 2014, local courts received just 2,403 cases involving more than 3 billion yuan (US$434 million) relating to the free trade zone in the Pudong New Area.

The number has dramatically increased after the free trade zone expanded its size from April 2015.

From September 2017 to August 2018, local courts received 73,218 cases involving more than 62 billion yuan, up nearly 31 times and 21 times compared to four years ago, respectively, the court said.

In the past five years, local courts have received 271,606 cases relating to the free trade zone. More than 84 percent of the total were civil and commercial disputes.

Of them, financial disputes accounted for nearly 60 percent. This became a major problem from 2014 as the free trade zone was encouraging financial innovation and many entrepreneurs encountered new challenges, the court said.

Intellectual property disputes were another major problem, soaring from 8 in the 2013-2014 period to 4,407 in the 2017-2018 period.

Besides that, local courts received 1,729 cases involving people and companies from Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and overseas countries and regions that occurred in the city’s free trade zone in the past five years.

They were involved in a mixed category of disputes in fields such as financial lending and trade contracts, which showed closer ties between companies from home and abroad, the court said.

To better handle such cases, Shanghai Higher People’s Court has cooperated with East China University of Political Science and Law to set up a research institution to study how and when to apply foreign laws. The two will deepen cooperation this year, the court confirmed.