（Jing Gao Fa [2018]No.626, effective from September 21, 2018）

In order to give full play to the role of judicial function, improve investment and market environment, and provide quality judicial services and strong judicial guarantees for optimizing Beijing’s business environment, according to “Action Plan of Beijing Municipality for Further Optimizing the Business Environment” (2018-2020) formulated by CPC Beijing Municipal Committee and Beijing Municipal People’s Government, as well as relevant provisions and spirit of the Supreme People’s Court, the following opinions are proposed.

I. Improve awareness of the importance of optimizing business environment, and strengthen organizational leadership

1. Fully understand the significance of optimizing business environment. Optimizing the business environment is a concrete arrangement for implementing the spirit of the important instructions of General Secretary Xi Jinping on strengthening the reform of the business environment. It is an inevitable requirement for liberating the productive forces and enhancing competitiveness. It is a major initiative to enhance the sense of gains from enterprises and the masses and promote Beijing’s high-quality economic development.

2. Enhance the sense of responsibility and mission for service assurance to optimize business environment. A good rule of law environment is an important part of business environment, and the courts must play an active role in promoting the optimization of Beijing’s business environment. Courts in Beijing Municipality must establish a sense of the overall situation, effectively unify thoughts and actions to the decision-making and work requirements of the central and municipal committees, and further play the role of judicial function, service and guarantee to create a stable, fair, transparent and predictable capital business environment.

3. Accurately understand and grasp the overall requirements for optimizing business environment. With the highest standards, the most stringent requirements, and seeking for the best results, we will implement the optimization of business environment and improve the judicial service support capabilities. Courts in Beijing Municipality should promote the optimization of business environment as an important breakthrough to improve the overall work of courts, adhere to the “Most Important Virtue Standard”, and improve the quality and efficiency of judicial functions with the strictest requirements to achieve the best judicial results.

4. Identify the acting point of optimizing Beijing’s business environment. Courts in Beijing Municipality must conscientiously implement the unified arrangement to optimize Beijing’s business environment, in accordance with the principles of reducing links, costs and time, as well as increasing transparency, to carry out judicial execution with improved quality, optimized services and openness, facilitated by informatization construction, so that the public can truly feel the justice of the judiciary.

5. Adhere to the principle of equal protection. Courts in Beijing Municipality should take property rights and contracts protection, market unification, equal exchange, and fair competition as the basic orientation, maintain fair rules, fair rights, fair opportunities, and equal protection of the legitimate rights and interests of different ownership entities in accordance with the law. The goal is to create a good rule of law environment for Beijing to have a world-class business environment.

6. Strictly review all kinds of cases according to law and stabilize social expectations. Good social expectations are the cornerstone of a stable and healthy economic operation. Courts in Beijing Municipality must perform their judicial duties in accordance with the law, respect the judicial laws, deal with all kinds of cases fairly and efficiently, enhance the sense of security of the people on property wealth, and stimulate the enthusiasm for innovation and entrepreneurship of various market players.

7. Strengthen organizational leadership for optimizing business environment. Courts in Beijing Municipality should promote the optimization of business environment as the number one project, set up a leading group to optimize business environment, and build a specialized working team. Improve and perfect the working mechanism for optimizing business environment, establish a contact system, and increase integration of works. Strengthen information communication, business research, and coordination linkage mechanisms with government departments at all levels to help build a law-based and service-oriented government, and actively provide effective judicial guarantees for governments at all levels to optimize their business environment. It is necessary to incorporate the optimization of business environment into the assessment and evaluation system, define the main responsibility, and promote the implementation through assessment.

II. Improve the quality and efficiency of trial and guarantee judicial justice

8. Improve the random case allocation mechanism supplemented by assigned case allocation. By optimizing the rules of intelligent random case allocation, after the case is accepted, the case will be randomly and automatically assigned by the computer according to the allocation rule. Once the case judge is determined, it cannot be changed without authorization. If there is a need to adjust the case judge due to the reasons c of avoidance circumstance or work mobilization, physical health, and integrity, the president of the court shall decide the examination and approval according to the authority limits. The reason and result of the adjustment shall be promptly notified to the parties of the case and publicized on relevant platform.

9.  Further promote the simplification and diversification of cases. We will improve the mechanism for rapid resolution of civil and commercial cases, and control the average case trial period within 180 days according to the law in a fast manner. We will increase the standardization of expedited proceedings, and take the guidance and guarantee of expedited proceedings to promote more specialized multiple mediation, form a long-term working mechanism for judges to guide mediators, and settle a large number of disputes before litigation quickly and legally. It is necessary to include all small litigation cases in the scope of expedited proceedings; deepen the reform of the speedy trial mode, promote the elementary trial mode; explore the elementary mode, writ- and form-based judgment documents, and improve the quality and efficiency of expedited proceedings based on the simplified procedures.

10. Strengthen judicial management and promote a virtuous circle of cases. Courts in Beijing Municipality must improve the judicial service guarantee capability with refined judicial management, speed up case turnover, and complete judicial tasks with high quality and efficiency. Strictly regulate civil and commercial cases to control trial period and postponement, further standardize trial process, improve the efficiency of trials, and safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of the case parties. Exercise strict control over the case amount for extension of trials, and strictly control examination and approval process for extension. If it is necessary to postpone the hearing, the parties shall be informed of the time of the next hearing, and the interval between two sessions shall not exceed one month, except for force majeure or consent of the parties.

11. Promote the standardization construction and informatization application in judicial trial. Further promote the standardization of judicial works, ensure that judges clearly grasp the judgment standards of various common cases, and allow all types of cases to have standardized processing standards and processing procedures to ensure uniform application of laws. We will strengthen the informatization construction of case handling, provide intelligent assistance to the judicial personnel in handling the case in terms of regulating judicial procedures, clarifying judicial thinking, and unifying judgment standards, and provide intelligent services to guide the parties in litigation expectations.

12. Strengthen the analysis and application of big data in judicial trials. Explore the establishment of a trial mode that is compatible with the internet era, so the full process of litigation activities such as filing, material submission, trial, and delivery can be handled online. Perfect the big data analysis platform, strengthen the in-depth digging analysis of massive case resources, improve the level of intelligent reasoning applicable to the law in terms of case facts and disputes, and provide reference for the trial of judges.

13. Conquer difficult problems with full force. Further strengthen the implementation of management, standardize the implementation of execution, and actively innovate ways and means. Further deepen the implementation of reforms, establish and perfect institutional mechanisms that are consistent with the characteristics of the law of execution, and promote the healthy and long-term development of execution. On the basis of strengthening network execution investigation and control, we will further expand the scope of point-to-point investigation and control, and strive to achieve full coverage of the property inspection and control of the person subject to execution.

14. Ensure fair and efficient rule of business-related corporate cases and cases involving various types of commercial contracts. It is necessary to fully respect such company’s autonomy, maintain the balance of the legitimate rights and interests of the company, shareholders and creditors, and guide the company to improve its internal governance structure and promote the healthy development of market entities. In the process of trial of commercial contract cases, with the principle of respecting the freedom of contract, the commercial trial promotes the rule consciousness and integrity consciousness of the commercial subject, and promotes a good atmosphere for the society to be honest and trustworthy, as well as to handle affairs abide by the law.

15. Properly handle all kinds of intellectual property cases in accordance with the law, study and improve the intellectual property litigation system,  bring into play judicial role of guidance and demonstration, establish a scientific and rational intellectual property value assessment mechanism to provide adequate judicial relief for rights holders, and give full play to the judicial guarantee role of intellectual property trials in strengthening the construction of Beijing as a science and technology innovation center.

16.  Strengthen the judicial function of foreign-related commercial cases, strengthen the connection with arbitration and foreign-related commercial mediation organizations, attract more and more international business entities to choose to resolve disputes in Beijing, and promote the establishment of an international commercial dispute resolution center by establishing international trade rules through judicial adjudication. Facilitate perfection of the “Belt and Road” dispute resolution mechanism, and serve to ensure the construction of Beijing as an international exchange center.

III. Optimize litigation services and improve justice level for the people

17. Further strengthen online filing works. On the basis of making an appointment on the internet, we will continue to explore putting commercial cases for lawyers directly on the internet, so that lawyers can go through the formalities of filing without leaving their homes, and shorten the period for filing and improve the efficiency of litigation.

18. Promote simultaneous generation of electronic files with progress of cases, and promote full-service online processing. Optimize electronic file uploading, and internal & external network data interaction functions, improve the upload speed of electronic files, and reduce the burden of court scanning work. Strengthen the application of electronic files, deepen the online processing of trial execution, implement online marking, online trial, online delivery, online intelligence generation of legal documents, comprehensively promote process reshaping, rule reshaping, and build a mechanism of judicial process and trial that are more in line with network rules.. Consolidate the use of voice-to-text technology and continue to promote the in-depth application of voice-to-text technology.

19.  Comply with the needs for reforming the judicial system, establish an intensive, intelligent and diversified management mechanism for trial-assisted affairs, and effectively reduce the workload for the first-line judicial team. On the basis of the comprehensive use of the announcement delivery module of the intensive delivery platform, the promotion of the special delivery and electronic delivery of the courts will be carried out, and the on-line operation of the outbound direct delivery module will be realized as soon as possible. Explore the intensive judicial appraisal work management mode, build a comprehensive service management platform for judicial appraisal work, and effectively improve the efficiency of judicial appraisal and evaluation.

20. Guided by the needs of the public, comprehensively promote the construction of litigation service centers, realize the standardization of litigation service centers, and provide more high-quality and convenient services for the public involved in litigation. Adhere to the guidance of science and technology, speed up the in-depth integration of informatization and litigation services, provide a full range of electronic litigation services for the parties, and promote the seamless connection between the network service platform and the established platform for handling cases and openness by the courts, as well as accelerate the realization of “informatization for the convenience of the public”.

21. With the "Beijing Court Litigation Service WeChat Official Account" as the carrier, in the form of popular interest, we will focus on promoting and applying the WeChat service platform, and further improve online guidance, online filing, online self-service, automatic litigation information, etc. The lawyer's online service platform specially set up fully utilizes the core functions of two-way instant messaging by WeChat, and extends interactive case handling matters (i.e. filing, notification, and delivery) to mobile terminals.

22. Create a full-featured 12368 hotline service mode. It is necessary to make full use of the resource advantages of purchased services, and make full efforts to provide litigation consultation, case inquiry, complaints and reports, contact with judges and opinions and suggestions, and other hotline services for the parties and the public. On this basis, we will further expand our service functions and business scope by improving the contents of the knowledge base and build platforms for dealing with intellectual property and credit card disputes, and to implement other measures.

IV. Deepen judicial openness and increase judicial transparency

23. Broaden the breadth of judicial disclosure and promote fairness through publicity. We will improve the construction of the four major platforms (adjudication documents; trial process; implementation information; and trial live broadcast), and guarantee the litigant rights of the parties. Strengthen the supervision and management of non-public internet judgment documents, and timely interface with the Chinese Judgments Online (http://wenshu.court.gov.cn/) the list of non-public judgment documents. Advance the trial live broadcast work and increase the number of live broadcast cases in China. Strengthen the information disclosure work of the trial process, timely and comprehensively enter the case information, and ensure that the parties obtain the information of the trial process in a timely and accurate manner.

24. Gradually realize active pushing of information on the trial process of commercial disputes. In the case where the parties agree to electronic delivery, the whole process information of the case will be disclosed to the parties and their attorneys since the court’s acceptance of the case. The parties and their agents will be informed by means of WeChat Official Account and SMS. It is convenient for them to keep abreast of the detailed progress of the case handled by the court.

25. Increase policy interpretation and promotion. Make full use of the new media such as portals, Weibo, WeChat, and news online, strengthen the publicity and education of the rule of law, give full play to the guiding role of judicial judgments, and maintain a fair and competitive market order. We will pass on the concept of the judiciary for the people in various forms, so that the people can truly feel the effectiveness of the works of courts in Beijing.

V. Strengthen bankruptcy trial work, and structural reform of service supply side

26. Strengthen the professionalization of bankruptcy trials and promote the overall improvement of bankruptcy trial capabilities. The basic people's courts that do not have a bankruptcy trial division should set up a special bankruptcy collegial panel or trial team to achieve centralized and specialized trials of bankruptcy cases, and to unify the scale of judgments and ensure the quality of trials. Maintain the stability of the bankruptcy trial team, increase training, conduct regular seminars and exchanges, and promote the regularization of the bankruptcy trial judges. Establish a separate performance appraisal standard for bankruptcy trials that meets the law of bankruptcy trials, and distinguish cases based on different conditions and stages.

27. Attach great importance to the bankruptcy and reorganization work, and play the rescue function of the bankruptcy law, so as to achieve a win-win situation for debtors, creditors, shareholders and the society. Through hearings, consultation with relevant government departments, third-party professional institutions, etc., combined with factors such as reasons for troubles in debtor's enterprise, corporate financial indicator, comprehensively identify whether the debt enterprise has the salvage value and the possibility of regeneration, and whether it is in line with the direction of industrial development. For distressed enterprises with salvage value, they should be given judicial treatment, and be actively guided with the application of bankruptcy reorganization procedures. For low-end and low-efficiency enterprises that do not have the value of treatment or hopeless for treatment, timely clear the market through bankruptcy liquidation, thus preventing them from accumulation of debt risks and triggering more risks and crisis. Actively support creditors, debtors, investors, strategic investors and other interested parties to save the enterprise through pre-reform and other related works, and explore the interface between the out-of-court restructuring and the court restructuring systems.

28. Actively explore division between simple and complex bankruptcy cases and improve trial efficiency. According to the complexity of cases, the classification and disposal mechanism will be constructed. Simple cases will be handled in a fast manner and complex cases in a more intensive manner. Under the premise of ensuring that the interested party procedures and the rights of the entity are not damaged, in case the debtor’s property is clear, insolvency may not be sufficient to cover bankruptcy costs, and the debtor and all creditors have reached an agreement on credit and debt, the case can be handled in a simplified manner. The court shall accept the matters of shortening the time limit, simplifying or merging the formalities and right of disposition recognized or determined by the creditors’ meeting without violating the prohibition of the law. The enforcement department shall preferentially apply to the simplified trial process for bankruptcy review cases without property under investigation. For "three no-enterprise" bankruptcy cases whose liquidation is impossible due to the whereabouts of the debtor’s personnel, property, books and important documents are unknown; explain to the creditors to file against the shareholders for their rights in another case.

29. Improve the selection and evaluation system of managers, realize appointment of managers on their merits, and the survival of the fittest, and improve the quality of bankruptcy cases through the improvement of the manager's ability to perform duties. Promote the re-approval of the city's list of managers, and formulate supporting roster management measures. Through the establishment of a manager's major matters reporting system and the establishment of a performance database, the dynamic evaluation of managers will be realized, and incentive and elimination mechanisms will be formed to promote the improvement of managers’ ability to perform their duties... In the way of selecting a manager, the manager should be selected according to the difficulty of the case either through lottery system or designation. For bankruptcy reorganization cases, personnel with professional technical knowledge and business management capabilities can be appropriately absorbed into the ranks of managers. Promote the establishment of Managers Association in Beijing to strengthen industry self-discipline, cooperation and mutual assistance, and promote the professionalization, market-oriented development and overall improvement of the management team.

30. Strengthen the protection of creditors’ interests and support managers to perform their duties according to law. Promote the use of “peer-to-peer” channels established by the financial and housing management agencies in the implementation process to investigate and control the “three-no-enterprise” assets. Increase the intensity of sanctions according to law for corporate shareholders, senior executives, actual controllers, etc. who evade, refuse, or delay the implementation of their legal obligations. Promote the application of on-line auction in bankruptcy procedures, explore market-based online auction methods that are more in line with the law of bankruptcy trials, and establish new rules for the disposal of bankrupt property prices.

31. Improve the coordination mechanism for bankruptcy work and the external environment in which bankruptcy law is applied. Establish a normalized government and court coordination mechanism to accelerate the formation of bankruptcy dispute resolution. Through the linkage of the government and court, strengthen the early warning of enterprise bankruptcy risks, information sharing and feedback, and cross-departmental joint research, etc., promote the settlement of defective property in bankrupt enterprise, reorganization of corporate renewal and credit repair, and management personnel's performance of duties in accordance with the law, as well as other bottleneck problems, so as to accelerate and realize the transformation of case coordination to institutionalized interface.

32. Vigorously promote the application of information technology and improve the informatization level of bankruptcy trials. Unblock the online filing booking channel and use the online filing port of the national court bankruptcy reorganization information platform to reduce the cost of filing. Synchronously generate electronic information data through “one network and two platforms” to increase judicial openness. By convening online creditors’ meeting and giving priority to online judicial auctions, extensively use informatization technology to improve trial efficiency.