On 7 September 2020, the State Council of China published a policy paper on opening up the services sector in Beijing (“Work Plan for Deepening Comprehensive Pilot and New Round of Opening-Up of Services Sectors in Beijing and Building Comprehensive Demonstrative Area of Opening-up of State Services Sectors” or《深化北京市新一轮服务业扩大开放综合试点建设国家服务业扩大开放综合示范区工作方案》). The paper announces  that foreign arbitral … Read more

Herbert Smith Freehills invites applications for internships with the firm’s international arbitration group in Hong Kong. Four internship positions are available during 2021; each for three to four month periods (not extendable). Interns will work alongside our international arbitration team and will have a varied workload, including assistance with current arbitrations and other client work; … Read more

While commercial parties are generally free to select the law that governs their contracts, they must also ensure that they understand the law they selected, and can actually apply that law to the contract.  In a CIETAC arbitral award published by CIETAC in its publication “Selection of Arbitration Cases Involving the Belt and Road Countries”, … Read more

Can a foreign arbitral award be recognized and enforced in the PRC against a foreign company not incorporated there? In the recent case of Amarante vs Intermarine[1], the Tianjin Higher People’s Court confirmed the Tianjin Maritime Court’s decision to recognize and enforce a foreign arbitral award against a BVI company, by finding that the BVI … Read more

The Supreme Court of People’s Republic of China (SPC) formally promulgated the amended version of Several Provisions of the SPC on Evidence for Civil Litigation (New Evidence Rules) on 25 December 2019, which came into effect on 1 May 2020. There are many highlights in the New Evidence Rules. To provide readers with some guidance … Read more

The Supreme Court of People’s Republic of China (SPC) formally promulgated the amended version of Several Provisions of the SPC on Evidence for Civil Litigation (New Evidence Rules) on 25 December 2019, which came into effect on 1 May 2020. There are many highlights in the New Evidence Rules. To provide readers with some guidance … Read more

The Hong Kong Court of First Instance has granted a so-called “Hadkinson order”, adjourning an application to resist enforcement of CIETAC arbitral awards, on the basis of the applicant’s poor conduct in earlier stages of the proceedings. The court also ordered the parties resisting enforcement to pay 40% of the award amounts as security. The … Read more

The Supreme Court of People’s Republic of China (SPC) formally promulgated the amended version of Several Provisions of the SPC on Evidence for Civil Litigation (New Evidence Rules) on 25 December 2019, which came into effect on 1 May 2020. There are many highlights in the New Evidence Rules. To provide readers with some guidance … Read more