Foreign entities treated equally in legal disputes
Local courts had handled about 528,000 civil and commercial cases of first instance last year, including more than 3,300 related to foreign parties, city's higher court said.
The court said it will improve the mechanism for civil, commercial and maritime cases with foreign parties involved and protect the rights of domestic and foreign companies equally, setting up of a system covering lawsuit, mediation and arbitration.
In one case released by the court, a trade company and a real estate company, both foreign-owned, had a dispute over their electricity distribution project contract and had the Singapore International Arbitration Center to arbitrate it. However, after the center made its decision, the real estate company did not comply and the trade company had to apply for an execution.
Although the two companies' legal persons were Chinese and the delivery place was in China, their contract covered some customs supervision in the free trade zone and should be treated differently from common domestic trade contracts.
Under the New York Convention (Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards) and some related national regulations, the court said this case was in connection to foreign affairs and confirmed the legal effect of the arbitration decision.
"With the expansion of China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone and the nation's further opening-up, the disputes related to foreign parties are expected to see a steady increase," said Mao Ronghua, deputy head of the court. "We have established a series of trial systems for cases involving the free trade zone and strengthened the research on foreign-related cases to give equal protection to the domestic and foreign companies' rights."
Last year the court had heard some 44,000 cases related to the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone.