On 15 Jan. 2025, China’s Supreme People’s Court (SPC) issued the “Interpretation on the Application of the Marriage and Family Part of the Civil Code of the People’s Republic of China (II)” (hereinafter the “Interpretation (II)”, 关于适用〈中华人民共和国民法典〉婚姻家庭编的解释（二）) along with typical cases, providing guidance on the application of law in the areas of marriage, family, and property.
Over the past three years, Chinese courts have concluded approximately 2 million marriage and family cases annually, accounting for about 12 percent of all first-instance civil cases. Among these, divorce dispute cases amount to approximately 1.5 million annually, representing nearly 80 percent of all family cases.
The Interpretation (II) contains 23 articles that take a problem-oriented approach, addressing common issues such as malicious debt evasion through divorce, parental contributions to children’s post-marriage housing purchases, and rewards on live streaming platforms.
Highlights include:
- If a debtor maliciously evades debt through divorce, creditors may refer to Articles 538 or 539 of the Civil Code regarding creditors’ right of revocation to request the revocation of relevant property division clauses in the divorce agreement to protect their legitimate rights and interests.
- If one spouse, through bigamy, cohabitation with others, or other circumstances that violate public order and good morals, gives away or transfers community property to others at a manifestly unreasonable low price, the other spouse may claim that the contract is invalid and demand the return of property according to law.
- If one spouse, without the consent of the other, rewards hosts through live streaming platforms, which is clearly exceed the family’s general consumption level and seriously harms the interests of the community property, it may be determined as “squandering of community property”. The other spouse may request division of community property during the marriage, or request that the rewarding spouse receive less or no share during divorce property division.