As China’s financial hub, Shanghai is drawing rising foreign investor interest while refining its cross-border commercial dispute framework. During a visit to the Pudong New Area on Tuesday, Global Times reporters found the district to be a microcosm of the city’s ambition to build a sophisticated, internationally trusted system for foreign-related commercial legal cases.
On the table and shelves, neatly arranged case studies from the People’s Court of Pudong New Area detail the latest solutions to foreign-related legal business disputes. These cases, which cover financing and equity conflicts, reflect the complex realities of foreign investment – complexities that are particularly evident in the Lin-gang Special Area.
Lin-gang, home to many foreign enterprises, including Tesla, offers a close-up view of Shanghai’s growing innovation and sophistication in managing foreign-related legal cases.
Since 2019, the People’s Court of Pudong New Area (which administers the Lin-gang Special Area) has developed a “litigation-mediation-arbitration” one-stop mechanism for foreign-related commercial disputes. It created a dedicated one-stop service office for such disputes and set up a one-stop dispute resolution platform for international commercial affairs in Lin-gang Special Area.
Since the office’s launch, 1,375 commercial disputes have been mediated and 56 cases were coordinated with arbitration institutions, the Global Times learned from the Shanghai High People’s Court on Tuesday.
The one-stop mechanism was recognized by the National Development and Reform Commission as one of the 25 Pudong New Area innovations to be promoted nationwide.
In August, the Shanghai International Commercial Court opened its Lin-gang Special Area Circuit Court, which held its first hearing on August 29.
The inaugural case went to the heart of current market strains: a breach of contract over NVIDIA chip supplies, sparked by the global semiconductor shortage. With such disputes increasingly common in Lin-gang, the panel swiftly established the facts and issued a final ruling on the spot, efficiently resolving the matter and signaling to tech firms: heed global market volatility, choose partners prudently, and avoid overreliance on single supply chains.
“Lin-gang may be one of the farthest districts from Shanghai’s center, but we are the closest to the world,” Yan Jianyi, an official from Shanghai Pudong People’s Court said proudly.
Shanghai’s growing spread in foreign-related jurisdiction is prompting an increasing number of foreign parties to choose Shanghai as the venue for their lawsuits.
The Global Times learned that in September, a UK-based ship equipment supplier company claimed that a Greek ship management company had defaulted after receiving parts. When the supplier learned other vessels managed by the Greek company had docked in Shanghai, it requested mediation.
To prevent escalation, the Justice Bureau of Shanghai’s Pudong New Area and veteran international arbitrators discussed the case and formulated a mediation strategy. After multiple rounds of communication with both parties, gradually bridged the differences and ultimately facilitated the signing of a settlement agreement.
Afterward, the British company’s representative praised the “Pudong speed,” noting that it only took 11 days from signing the settlement agreement to the issuance of the arbitration award.