Upcoming amendments to Chinese Civil Procedure law to address foreign parties

On 1 September 2023, the Standing Committee of China’s National People’s Congress passed new amendments to the Civil Procedure Law, which will take effect from 1 January 2024 (EN news report). These amendments will enhance measures for handling foreign-related cases.

The amendments in Chinese are available here. (We also provide an unofficial translation below of some of these amendments.)

Summary

The key highlights of the amendments relating to foreign parties’ procedure rights in civil litigation in China are:

• Jurisdiction nexus: The proper connection principle has been codified to permit a Chinese court to exercise jurisdiction over any case with proper connection to China. The proper connection principle was applied by the SPC (Supreme People's Court) in the OPPO v. Sharp and OPPO v Nokia cases to establish the Chinese court’s jurisdiction over a global FRAND determination case. Now the proper connection principle has been officially codified into the new amendments in Articles 274 and 278. 

• Parallel litigation: Two new rules relating to parallel litigations provide that a Chinese court may still exercise jurisdiction over a case under certain circumstance even if the same dispute has been filed first in a foreign court. (See Articles 280, 281 and 284.) 

• Service of proceedings: China has been placing efforts to ease the way and shorten the time for service on foreign defendant. New ways of service of process on foreign defendants have been introduced. Under the new amendments, service of process on a foreign company can be made by delivering the litigation documents to the legal representative of this foreign company when he/she travels to China. These amendments are in Article 283.

Translation

Below is an unofficial translation of some of the amendments:

Jurisdiction nexus

Art 274 reads as:

“For foreign related civil disputes, in an action(identity related litigation cases excluded) that is instituted against a defendant who has no domicile within the territory of the People's Republic of China, if the place where the contract is signed, the place where the contract is performed, the place where the subject matter of action is located, the where the chargeable property is located, the place of infringement or the place where the representative office is located, is within the territory of the People's Republic of China, the people's court at the place where the contract is signed or performed, where the subject matter of action is located, where the chargeable property is located, where the infringing is occurred or where the representative office is located could have jurisdiction over the action.