By Meng Yu &  Guodong Du  On 20 June 2017, a local court in Chenzhou, Hunan Province, China, ruled against recognition of a French judgment on the ground that the applicant failed to submit a return receipt of the said judgment, and that the Court finds no record showing that China’s Ministry of Justice (“MOJ”) and the Supreme People’s Court (“SPC”) has ever served the judgment to the respondent in China. 1 Overview On…

 By Meng Yu &  Guodong Du  In June 2017, a court in Fujian Province, China, rendered a judgment against recognition of an Israeli court judgment, but we believe that a similar case is very unlikely to happen again in the future. What’ more, we are optimistic that Chinese courts will possibly recognize and enforce the judgment of Israeli courts in the future. 1. Overview On 6 June 2017, Fuzhou Intermediate People’s Court in China (“Fuzhou…

 By Meng Yu &  Guodong Du  The most important difference between litigation and arbitration in China is that judges and arbitrators have different ways of thinking. When most people refer to the difference between Chinese litigation and arbitration, they are likely to say that arbitration is fairer than litigation because Chinese judges may render unfair judgments, while arbitrators in Chinese arbitration institutions are relatively better. Indeed, in a few cases, judges may be affected…

 By Meng Yu &  Guodong Du  Why should Chinese courts try to resolve the enforcement predicament of civil judgments in two to three years (i.e., 2016-2018)? Justice Zhou Qiang (周强), president of China’s Supreme People’s Court (SPC), explained this in a report on 24 October 2018, and introduced what the Chinese courts did for this. The report refers to the “Report of the Supreme People’s Court on the Work by the People’s Court …

 By Meng Yu &  Guodong Du  For a long time, since Chinese judges are not very good at ascertaining foreign law, they have been accustomed to refusing to apply them on the ground of failure to prove foreign law. The situation is presently being changed: China’s Supreme People’s Court (SPC) has been pushing all courts across the country to ascertain and apply foreign law as much as possible in the last three years. The…

Judge Du Wanhua (杜万华), deputy director of the Advisory Committee to the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) of China (also an expert on bankruptcy law at the SPC) wrote in July 2018 that the China-US trade war may bankrupt many Chinese companies, and Chinese courts should get prepared as soon as possible. Du said that many of the companies that go bankrupt due to the trade war are high-quality enterprises and even promising high-tech enterprises. These…