To No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court, No. 2 Intermediate People’s Court, No. 3 Intermediate People’s Court, No. 4 Intermediate People’s Court in Beijing, Beijing Intellectual Property Court, and Beijing Financial Court,

To the people’s courts of all districts and Beijing Internet Court,

To the relevant departments of Beijing High People’s Court,

The 19th Meeting of the Leading Party Members' Group of Beijing High People’s Court of 2021 deliberated and adopted the Opinions of Beijing High People's Court on Increasing the Speed in the Litigation Enforcement Whole-Process to Serve the Building of a Market-Oriented, World-Cass Doing Business Environment Governed by a Sound Legal Framework and two annexes in order to profoundly implement the decisions and arrangements of the CPC Central Committee, the CPC Beijing Municipal Committee and the Supreme People’s Court on optimizing the doing business environment, implement the Implementation Plan of Beijing Municipality for Further Optimizing the Doing Business Environment and Better Serving Market Entities, further improve the overall quality and efficiency of litigation enforcement, enhance the level of informationization and facilitation of litigation, and provide better judicial service and support for building a market-oriented, world-class business environment governed by a sound legal framework. The Task Breakdown Register is mainly for departments of Beijing High People’s Court and Beijing Bankruptcy Court. The Key Tasks is mainly for courts at the intermediate and primary level. The documents above are hereby issued for your earnest implementation. For any problems encountered in the implementation, please report them to the 2nd Civil Division of Beijing High People’s Court in a timely manner.

It is hereby notified.

Beijing High People’s Court

March 31, 2021

Opinions of Beijing High People’s Court on Increasing the Speed in the Litigation Enforcement Whole-Process to Serve the Building of a Market-oriented, World-class Business Environment Governed by a Sound Legal Framework

Jing Gao Fa Fa [2021] No. 234

The Opinions is formulated based on the actual conditions of Beijing courts in order to profoundly implement the decisions and arrangements of the CPC Central Committee, the CPC Beijing Municipal Committee and the Supreme People’s Court on optimizing the doing business environment, implement the Implementation Plan of Beijing Municipality for Further Optimizing the Doing Business Environment and Better Serving Market Entities, further improve the overall quality and efficiency of litigation enforcement, enhance the level of informationization and facilitation of litigation and provide better judicial service and support for building a market-oriented, world-class business environment governed by a sound legal framework.

I. Grasping the Theme of High-Quality Development and Protecting the Legitimate Rights and Interests of Market Entities According to the Law

1. Fully serving and supporting the construction of "two zones" in Beijing. We will drive the formulation and improvement of judicial policies, assist the Supreme People’s Court in issuing judicial policies and opinions to provide judicial services for the construction of "two zones", study and formulate specific work measures and make every effort to ensure the implementation of all measures serving and supporting the construction of "two zones".

2. Strengthening the trial of foreign-related cases. Promote the centralized jurisdiction over foreign-related cases, establish the Beijing International Commercial Court and strengthen the cultivation and professional training of talents hearing foreign-related cases in order to give full play to its role as the diversified one-stop settlement center for foreign-related commercial disputes covering litigation, mediation and arbitration, actively build a venue excel at international commercial dispute resolution, and provide high-quality judicial services for advanced opening-up of Beijing.

3. Improving the trial mechanism of financial cases. We will establish Beijing Financial Court following a high standard from the very start to centrally hear financial cases based on regional functional positioning and characteristics, and drive the reform of financial trial system and mechanism. Efforts will be made to drive the building of a diversified settlement mechanism for financial disputes, promote the separation of financial disputes into simple cases and complicated ones and application of procedures of different speeds, deepen the reform of the “division, mediation, ruling and trial" mechanism of financial cases, and promote the efficient resolution of financial disputes. Work will be done to establish a normal communication and coordination mechanism with financial regulators to strengthen the connection between administrative measures and judicial trials for financial risks, join efforts in the prevention and control financial risks, so as to effectively safeguard national financial security.

4. Intensifying judicial protection of property rights. All courts shall implement the Several Opinions n Law-based Equal Protection of the Rights and Interests of Private Enterprises of Beijing High People’s Court to equally protect the property rights of state-owned, private and foreign-funded enterprises in accordance with the law, respect the freedom of contract, maintain the fairness of contract, and encourage market transactions to maintain a market order allowing fair competition among various market entities. The legitimate financing acts of private enterprises shall be accurately distinguished from the illegal absorption of public deposits and the boundary of law application shall be clarified to properly solve the problem involving both civil and criminal laws and provide stable expectations for all market entities carrying out business activities.

II. Coordinating Filing, Trial and Enforcement to Further Reduce the Litigation Costs and Time Costs of the Parties to Litigation

5. Ensuring that paper complaints will not be filed repeatedly after the online case is filed. After the party to litigation directly files a suit online and submits an electronic complaint, the court will not ask for paper complaint materials in the stages of filing, trial, enforcement and archiving except so required in case hearing. The specific circumstances in which paper complaint materials are required will be detailed and made open to the public to accept supervision from the public.

6. Further improving the utilization rate of electronic service. The "Information Database on Service Address of Beijing Courts” will be upgraded to collect, sort out and integrate all kinds of address information and the parties will be recommended to employ the electronic service addresses first. We will promote the collection of uniform service addresses of lawyers in three levels of courts across Beijing, guide lawyers to prefer the application of electronic service and confirm the electronic service addresses, increase the cases employing electronic service, and improve the service efficiency. All courts shall collect more information about service address left by parties based on their own actual conditions so that such information can be shared by all courts across the city.

7. Further promoting the implementation of the service address commitment and confirmation system for market entities. We will actively request the assistance of Beijing Municipal Administration for Market Regulation to adjust the content of notification commitment in the registration stage, increase publicity efforts, and lead more enterprises to know and use the service address commitment and confirmation system for market entities. All courts of the municipality will be instructed to serve instruments to the committed and confirmed default address of enterprises and other market entities in a regulated manner according to the law. Based on the provisions and requirements of the reform of separation of civil cases into simple cases and complicated ones, we will use the reserved email addresses of the enterprise annual reporting system in a regulated manner according to the law.

8. Advancing speedy trial of simple cases. We will deepen the pilot reform of separation of civil cases into simple cases and complicated ones, increase efforts in the detailed interpretation of policies and the guidance, intensified application of small claims procedure, supervision and reporting of summary procedure, trying to realize the target of application of summary procedure in 80%-85 cases. Efforts will be made to streamline the process according to the law, strictly control the conversion of procedures, strengthen protection over the right of action, and effectively reduce the average duration of small claims procedure and summary procedure to accelerate the trail of relevant cases. The “multiple mediation + immediate judgment” mechanism will be optimized to ensure the smooth transition of mediation, immediate judgment and detailed trial and consolidate the litigation system where simple cases are settled through mediation and immediate judgment and complex cases are settled through detailed trial. The speedy trial mechanism for insolvency cases will be comprehensively implemented to ensure the speedy trial procedure is applied whenever possible, regulate the process of trial based on the trial cycle of cases subject to the speedy trial, and further reduce the trial cycle of insolvency cases.

9. Implementing provisions for adjournment. Efforts will be done to strengthen pretrial preparation, improve the trial quality, ensure that the number of pretrial meetings and formal hearings meet the requirements, and increase trial efficiency. We will improve the adjournment management system, report adjournment information on a regular basis and conduct strict control on adjournments.

10. Strictly implementing the trial time limit provisions. Efforts will be made to ensure traceability along the trial process. Where talk, cross-examination or hearing is required during the process, a court should be ordered through the trial system. We will improve the data analysis platform for optimizing the doing business environment, strengthen the real-time collection, extraction, analysis and reporting of data related to time consumption of civil and commercial cases at different time nodes, strictly control the time limit of filing, hearing, judgment and other procedures to further shorten the trial cycle to make the parties and market entities truly feel the improvement of trial quality and efficiency. Cases with multiple deductions, long deductions and long natural trial cycles will be subject to strengthened supervision. More detailed rules will be laid down for continuances, deduction reasons and upper limit of deductions. Hearings over the statutory times and continuances exceeding the time limit shall be submitted to Beijing High People’s Court for review, approval and filing to resolutely rectify the problems of out-of-control process management and over-time-limit trails and avoid illegal deductions and disguised over-time-limit trails. Work will be done to accelerate the settlement of carried-over insolvency cases, supervise the settlement of backlogged cases, and promote the solution of bottleneck problems. The Beijing Bankruptcy Court will try to set up a long unsettled cases notification mechanism of the Administrators Association, where the Administrators Association will, based on the case notification, urge administrators to advance bankruptcy proceedings and provide regular reports about the progress to the court, so as to guide the Administrators Association to play its role in self-regulation of the industry.

11. Strengthening standardized management of appraisal and evaluation institutions. The “Integrated Authorization Platform of Beijing Courts” will be improved to enhance the supervision on authorization with IT means. An evaluation information sharing mechanism between the courts and the governmental appraisal institutions will be established. The dynamic management and evaluation of professional institutions will be strengthened. We will work with administrative regulators and relevant industry associations to evaluate the professional appraisal and evaluation institutions in the city and publicize the evaluation results, and strive to shorten the average time of appraisal and evaluation in general cases to 30 natural days.

12. Strengthening the whole process management of cases involving appraisal. More detailed provisions about the content of appraisal and evaluation will be laid down to provide more feasible review guidance for judges. The centralized management of entrustment will be further advanced to provide better service and support for trial team in terms of assisting review, determining appraisal institutions, handling entrustment, material transfer and communication & coordination. The time node management on the process of cases involving appraisal will be strengthened. Key data will be publicized once every month, such as the length of appraisal-related deductions, average appraisal length in general cases of all courts in the city, rate of online entrustment of appraisal, appraisal in cases unsettled in over three years, in order to help all courts make up their shortcomings, enhance related rules and increase the efficiency.

13. Extending the synchronous generation and profound application of electronic files. With lessons drawn from the pilot program at High Court and some other courts, we will extend the intelligent application of electronic files in scenarios such as case information filling, intelligent file reading, file disclosure and collaboration, document generation, one-click archiving, and similar case pushing to further implement the online processing of cases in the entire process, all-node supervision and management, and all-round intelligent services. According to the requirements of the pilot program, efforts will be made to perform appeal transfer based on electronic file, optimize the nodes and procedures of appeal transfer and file return, and further reduce the time for handling pilot appeal cases involving electronic file transfer.

14. Standardize the implementation of operational standards for property preservation. We will investigate specific problems existing in the implementation of property preservation, launch related norms and lay down uniform implementation standards to increase the efficiency of property preservation.

15. Accelerating the disposal of movable property. We will continue to advance online judicial auctions, select pilot courts, and designate special teams to centrally perform the registration, management, inquiry and auction of seized property. The application of court inquiry evaluation system will be promoted nationwide and various low-cost and zero-cost means such as bargaining by parties, online inquiry and collegiate panel pricing will be employed to speed up the determination of the reference price for the disposal of small movable property and reduce the evaluation cost.

16. Further enhancing and implementing the linkage mechanism. Active efforts will be made to advance the system connection with public security, traffic control and other departments to expand the scope of person and vehicle search and joint punishment.

17. Improving the supervision and restriction system of enforcement power. We will strengthen the notification and assessment, carry out special rectification campaigns, perform enforcement inspections, and implement the debriefing system for directors of enforcement bureaus of all courts in the city. Efforts will be made to strictly control the time nodes of each procedure of enforcement, strengthen the warning, notification and monitoring of more than 30 enforcement nodes, such as enforcement notification, property investigation and property disposal, striving to correct the problems of delayed enforcement, passive enforcement, untimely payment of case-related funds, excessive property investigation and control, etc., so as to ensure that the "3+1" core indicators are maintained a high level and increase the efficiency of case handling.

18. Further reducing bankruptcy costs and expenses. We will establish the bankruptcy cost monitoring mechanism, regulate the payment of bankruptcy expenses, and strengthen supervision on bankruptcy costs incurred by administrators. A series of systems and mechanisms will be extended, such as online creditors' meeting, online creditor's rights declaration and bankruptcy online auction. The application of information technology will be advanced in the disposal of bankruptcy-related property to streamline earlier procedures of determining the disposal reference price while protecting creditors' rights and further reduce the cost of property disposal.

19. Maintaining the continuous operation ability of debtor's enterprise. We will upgrade the bankruptcy online auction rules and make exploration on the use of bankruptcy online auction to realize the sale and continuous operation of debtor's property as a whole, and improve the conditions and processes for the transfer of the debtor's business as a whole in order to further break the time and space limits of property transfer and maintain the operating value of enterprises as much as possible. More means of online auction-based property disposal will be specified, including business transfer as a whole, property package disposal, separate disposal and post-appreciation disposal, in order to enhance the economic performance of bankruptcy case handling.

20. Actively exploring ways to help micro, small and medium-sized enterprises. We will make full use of reorganization, reconciliation and other procedures, strengthen bankruptcy prevention, attach importance to procedures simplification and respect autonomy of will to effectively resolve the debt crisis of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) with high efficiency and low cost. Active efforts will be made to promote the implementation of policies on post-reorganization credit repair and liquidity support and improve supporting policies to ensure the successful implementation of the reorganization system.

21. Unifying the standard for ruling in complex insolvency cases. Based on the experience of trial practice, we will conduct investigations on the legal problems in the trial of cases like substantial merger and bankruptcy of affiliated enterprises and issue relevant rules to enhance the standardization of bankruptcy trial and lead the creation of new rules.

22. Enhancing the government and court linkage mechanism in bankruptcy. We will study and establish the salary protection mechanism for employees in bankrupt enterprises, so as to protect rights and interests for employees in bankrupt enterprises. Work will be done to drive the establishment of a prior consultation mechanism for insolvency cases involving a large number of people, and strengthen the prevention and control, dynamic investigation and steady resolution of various risks. Efforts will be made to improve the real estate disposal mechanism of bankrupt enterprises, further clarify the rules for registering real estate of bankrupt enterprises with incomplete materials, and increase the efficiency of high-quality asset circulation. Besides, we will promote the establishment of a publicity system for insolvency and exit status of enterprises, strengthen the network connection and sharing of insolvency case information with relevant departments to provide effective references for investments of other market entities.

23. Strengthening supervision over the work of administrators. We will issue documents for administrator assessment, organize the administrator assessment committee and establish the regular administrator assessment mechanism to employ the market mechanism of survival of the fittest in administrator management and effectively drive the implementation of market-oriented bankruptcy.

III. Strengthening the Building of Intelligent Courts and Further Enhancing the Convenience and Sense of Gain of the Public to participate in Litigation

24. Optimizing the user experience in online filing. Efforts will be made to strengthen the guidance and publicity of the use of online filing system, and instruct the parties to submit complaint materials and physical evidence materials meeting the requirements. The use of the online preservation system of the people's courts will be promoted to facilitate the parties to apply for preservation online before and during litigation. We will promote cross-region filing and cross-border filing, and provide online batch filing and online payment of court fees for the parties to make the public feel the convenience and efficiency of justice.

25. Vigorously promoting online trials. We will implement online litigation rules, encourage reforms and innovations such as simultaneous generation of written records based on voices in hearing, and keep improving the electronic litigation platforms of the "Cloud Court", Beijing Mobile Micro-Court and Online Lawsuit Platform of Beijing Courts so that parties can complete all litigation activities such as evidence exchange, material submission, contact with judges, electronic service, electronic file reading, mediation and hearing, and blockchain-based litigation actions including document service, certificate storage and verification will be achieved.

26. Enhancing the automatic identification mechanism of judgment force. We will enhance the connection of various platforms of the courts to ensure that the parties do not need to submit the judgment force certification materials when applying for enforcement filing to improve the litigation convenience of the parties while reducing the preparation time for enforcement.

27. Realizing “One Onsite Visit" for disbursement of enforcement payment. By confirming the account information of the parties in advance, converting paper bills to electronic ones, etc., we will optimize the disbursement mechanism of enforcement payment to make the parties truly feel the convenience and efficiency.

28. Strengthening the information disclosure in the entire process of trial enforcement. We will increase the use and publicity of Beijing Court Trial Information Online, China Judicial Process Information Online, China Enforcement Information Online and other platforms so that the parties and their agents can keep abreast of the progress of trial and enforcement. The Enforcement Property Information Publicity Platform will be upgraded so that the enforcement applicant may inquire the investigation and control measures taken by the court on the person subject to enforcement more easily.

29. Improving the functions of the litigation service platform. We will implement the working mechanism of “responding to and handling lawsuits without delay” so as to ensure that every judge is in place and every case is resolved. Efforts will be made to enhance the contactless litigation service and improve the level of prevision service. The People's Court Lawyer Service Platform will be fully employed to improve the mechanisms allowing lawyers’ participation in litigation. Working with Beijing Lawyers Association, we will connect relevant functions of the Intelligent Lawyers' Business Platform and the Beijing Court Electronic Litigation Platform so as to further increase the channels for lawyers to handle litigation affairs. We will improve the feedback mechanism of market entities, listen to and collect opinions and advices from the public on Beijing courts’ service for optimizing the doing business environment through the 12368 litigation service hotline and Beijing Court Electronic Litigation Platform, and promote the effective implementation of key reforming measures such as paperless online filing.

30. Realizing the deep integration of information technology application and bankruptcy trial. We will promote the data migration between the old and new trial systems, establish the information sharing mechanism of insolvency cases, clarify the force of online information notification for insolvency cases, and improve the efficiency of trial. Efforts will be made to build an exclusive information platform for bankruptcy trials, realize online monitoring of the whole process of insolvency case, and continuously improve the standardization and convenience of bankruptcy trials.

IV. Enhancing the Working Mechanisms and Further Strengthening Comprehensive Support for Optimizing the Doing Business Environment

31. Strengthening the organization and leadership. The special team for doing business environment of Beijing High People’s Court will strengthen the coordination of cross-department and cross-line tasks, and intensify the guidance and supervision on the special teams for doing business environment of intermediate and primary courts to keep promoting the work. All intermediate and primary courts should strengthen the building of special teams for doing business environment and make them operate together with departments of filing, civil and commercial trials, enforcement, trial management, publicity, technology, etc. to pool efforts of different departments. A middle-level officer shall be appointed as a contact person to communicate with the special team for doing business environment of Beijing High People’s Court, and coordinate information transfer and daily communication.

32. Ensuring supervision and implementation. A working notification mechanism will be established to regularly summarize the measures taken by all courts of the city for optimizing the doing business environment and report key data. A regular inspection mechanism will be established. The special team for doing business environment of Beijing High People’s Court will perform inspections on a regular basis to check the implementation of paperless online filing, adjournment, and trial time limit management in courts of the city. Channels for information exchange and feedback will be established to collect opinions and suggestions from all parties by regularly distributing questionnaires and holding consultation meetings. Efforts will be made to strengthen communication and coordination with the government on bankruptcy, and keep improving reforming measures.

33. Strengthening special assessment. Relying on the objective responsibility system, we will continue to strengthen the assessment over indicators such as “optimizing the doing business environment " and "quality and efficiency of trial enforcement". The implementation of paperless online filing will be included in the assessment for objective responsibility system. If any parties report that they are required to provide paper complaint materials, once verified, relevant courts and personnel will be subject to point deduction unless it is necessary for trial. The implementation of adjournment provisions will be separately assessed and linked to the performance evaluation of judges. The courts that provide high-quality standard cases of “enforcing contracts" and “resolving insolvency" will be awarded extra points in the assessment for objective responsibility system.

34. Promoting the reform in both civil and commercial trials. We will ensure that all reforming measures aiming to improve trial efficiency, such as paperless online filing, strict control of adjournments and reducing trial period, are fully and effectively implemented in civil and commercial trials.

35. Intensifying publicity and training. We will mobilize all courts of the city, and work with Beijing Municipal Bureau of Justice, Beijing Lawyers Association, Beijing Administrators Association and other departments to carry out publicity and training in various forms to increase the awareness of the public and legal practitioners of the work conducted by Beijing courts for optimizing the doing business environment as much as possible so that various reform measures and typical cases can be known, tested and recognized. Regarding misleading concepts such as "adjournments", "judgment registration fees" and "bankruptcy expenses" involved in the World Bank evaluation, we will provide accurate interpretation and explanation to avoid misunderstanding and misreading. Experts from the World Bank will be invited to give lectures and provide training for judges and bankruptcy administrators so as to continuously improve their professional capability.

Beijing High People’s Court

March 30, 2021