Courts consider international case changes

Shanghai courts will be examining new practices in international commercial cases related to the Lingang Special Area of the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone, such as allowing foreign litigants to speak English in court, the Shanghai High People's Court announced on Monday.

A document issued on Monday about Shanghai courts' implementation opinions on serving the construction of the special area says, local courts will enhance its development and application of intelligent simultaneous translation technologies.

If all parties agree, foreign litigants will be able to use English in their lawsuits. For some typical international commercial cases, the courts will endeavor to make English versions of judgment documents and release them online.

The introduction of world-renowned third-party authentication institutions is likely to be set with a bilingual website for international commercial case trials.

The website will provide information such as related domestic and overseas laws, international treaties, international rules and typical cases.

Meanwhile, the high court also released guidelines for local courts to set up a one-stop working mechanism on lawsuits, mediation and arbitration of commercial cases related to foreign affairs.

That means when local courts accept and deal with such cases, they can introduce mediation organizations, arbitration institutions and legal service agencies to give diversified dispute settlement ways.

Services such as looking up articles on foreign laws, translation and notarization will also be available.

Foreign mediators and arbitrators, who may better know about the foreign litigants' needs, are also encouraged to participate in judicial procedures.

Between September 1 and December 25, local courts had accepted 2,487 cases related to the special area and handled 2,104 of them. There was a significant increase in cases of intellectual property, finance and commercial disputes related to foreign affairs. Intellectual property cases saw a rise of 133 percent compared with the same period last year.

Research from the high court suggests that the number of Lingang-related cases will keep growing and there will be more cases relevant to new industries and new types of trade modes.