China releases guideline on courts to facilitate opening-up

BEIJING -- China's Supreme People's Court on Friday issued a guideline on the legal services provided by courts to add impetus to further opening-up.

With 17 articles in six parts, the document highlights the principle of equal protection, aimed at providing a market environment in which Chinese and foreign parties engage in fair and impartial competition and are equally protected by the law.

The litigants' rights to choose a competent court and the applicable laws and methods to deal with the dispute are guaranteed, according to the guideline.

To promote the modernization of the trial system for foreign-related commercial and maritime cases, the guideline demands that the courts precisely ascertain and apply international treaties, conventions and foreign laws to strengthen the international credibility of adjudication.

The newly released guideline calls for the appropriate handling of foreign-related commercial and maritime cases concerning cross-border trade, investment and shipping, as well as the COVID-19 epidemic.

It requires further integration of foreign-related trials and the building of intelligent courts. In the meantime, the document also urges the building of a litigation service platform for extraterritorial litigants and the further development of the China International Commercial Court.

In terms of intellectual property rights, the 17-article document stresses the need to implement the punitive compensation mechanism for intellectual property infringement cases.