On August 28, 2023, the Shanghai No.2 Intermediate People¡¯s Court (¡°No.2 Intermediate Court¡±) held a press conference to release the Eight Measures on Deeply Promoting the Creation of a Law-Based Business Environment (hereinafter referred to as the ¡°New Eight Measures¡±) and the White Paper on the Trial of Cases to Ensure a Law-Based Business Environment. Guo Weiqing, secretary of the Party Leadership Group and president of the No.2 Intermediate Court, and Zhang Xin, member of the Party Leadership Group and vice president of the No.2 Intermediate Court, attended the press conference.

According to the press conference, in 2023, the No.2 Intermediate Court saw ¡°promoting the creation of a law-based business environment¡± as one of the important topics of the thematic education. The Court¡¯s leaders have gone to enterprises, sub-districts, and district courts for field research and launched special research projects, based on which there comes the ¡°New Eight Measures¡±. On the basis of the Eight Measures to Further Improve the Law-Based Business Environment released in 2019, the ¡°New Eight Measures¡± introduces the new development philosophy and proposes to improve the law-based business environment with a more sound system and more practical content.

 The New Eight Measures are as follows: 1. Strengthening cooperation between institutions to help enterprises resolve disputes in multiple ways before litigation; 2. Relying on platforms to smooth the channels for enterprises to get legal consultation; 3. Accelerating online efforts to make enterprise-related litigation procedures more convenient; 4. Punishing enterprise-related crimes to ensure lawful and compliant operation in enterprises; 5. Enhancing collaboration with the government to regulate enterprise-related administrative enforcement; 6. Paying attention to the development of enterprises and ensuring proper trading behavior in the market; 7. Ensuring civilized enforcement in good faith and realizing the rights and interests of the winning party in a timely manner; 8. Ensuring the long-term development of the business environment through reform and management advancing together.

The White Paper gives an in-depth analysis of the major business problems and business advice in the criminal, civil, and commercial fields, among others, and it includes five parts: cyber-crime involving e-commerce, money laundering, sublease of business premise, commercial apparent authority, and shareholder investment liability. The White Paper aims to help create a business-friendly atmosphere, stabilize judicial expectations, guarantee legal protection, and ensure a better market environment.

Guo Weiqing gave a general introduction about the ¡°New Eight Measures¡± and the White Paper: First, practicing active justice to proactively provide judicial service and guarantee. In recent years, the Court has adhered to the concept of active justice and adopted innovative and comprehensive policies in helping create a law-based business environment. It has taken each judicial case as a touchstone for the quality of the law-based business environment, and attempted to transform the judgment of a case into the judgment of values and risks, so as to guide enterprises to operate in good faith, stabilize market expectations, and stimulate creativity at the source. The release of the ¡°New Eight Measures¡± and the White Paper is a key step in proactively responding to the urgent needs of current market development and participating in the building of a law-based business environment. Second, using big data to provide targeted service and guarantee. The Court attaches great importance to the discovery and application of judicial data. Through an in-depth analysis of the data on the previous cases over business disputes and on trial management, it has worked on the risks and loopholes in various types of business activities and the weak links in judicial service and guarantee, and come up with two well-founded and practical results, which can be seen as a ¡°conduct manual¡± to guide businesses to operate according to law and a vivid practice of how the Court uses big data to ¡°detect and solve exiting problems and prevent potential ones¡±. Third, improving capacity to provide effective service and guarantee. The Court adheres to a systematic thinking and promotes the building of a law-based business environment through the whole process of judicial work, changes from coming up with a single result to introducing a combination of measures, and from consolidating the foundation to improving services, sticks to the principle of ¡°fairness and efficiency¡±, and strives to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of business-related trials. It insists on extending judicial recommendations and suggestions so that the result of an improved business environment will benefit market entities at a large scale. It insists on participating in social governance, helping build a governance pattern featuring joint governance and protection by multiple parties, and creating a strong judicial protection system that is more just, transparent, efficient, convenient, and standardized.

Zhang Xin introduced the main contents of the ¡°New Eight Measures¡±: First, making joint efforts to resolve enterprise-related disputes through multiple ways and manage them at the source, and moving closer to pre-lawsuit dispute resolution. Given the large amount of money involved in, the large number of, and the great complexity of enterprise-related disputes, the people¡¯s courts should, under the concept of active justice, move their judicial function ¡°one step further¡±. The ¡°New Eight Measures¡± has thus explored the judicial governance of the business environment from the two perspectives of institutional cooperation and platform construction: 1) supporting the integration of ¡°mediation, arbitration, and litigation¡± to expand the effect of dispute resolution in multiple ways; 2) using platforms like Judge Qiao¡¯s Studio to expand the effect of litigation source management. Second, ensuring that enterprise-related disputes are handled properly and resolved effectively, and moving closer to the integration of lawfulness and reasonableness. Enterprise-related disputes involve the civil and criminal fields, as well as the commercial field. The ¡°New Eight Measures¡± has explored different solutions according to the types of disputes: 1) fighting enterprise-related crimes to ensure ¡°lawful¡± operation in enterprises; 2) focusing on the key parties to ensure that disputes are resolved in a ¡°reasonable¡± way. Third, expanding the enforcement and trial effect of enterprise-related disputes, and moving closer to the ¡°back-end of trial¡±. The completion of the trial of enterprise-related disputes is not the end of providing judicial services to ensure a law-based business environment. The ¡°New Eight Measures¡± has thus strengthened the back-end governance of trial from the two perspectives of enforcement and trial extension: 1) striking a balance between realizing the rights and interests of the winning party and ensuring civilized enforcement in good faith and overcoming the difficulty in enforcement; 2) unifying the application of judicial suggestions and that of laws to extend the trial effect. Fourth, seeking innovation and upgrade in handling and managing enterprise-related disputes, and moving closer to ¡°modern transformation¡±. A law-based business environment requires continuous input of new technologies, new concepts, and new requirements. The ¡°New Eight Measures¡± has thus used judicial reform as the propeller for the creation of a law-based business environment, and promoted the long-term modernization of the rule of law through trial innovation and management upgrading: 1) exploring new approaches to trial and providing more efficient litigation services to enterprises; 2) exploring new approaches to management and promoting judges to fully perform their duties according to law.

Other participants included special supervisors of the No.2 Intermediate Court and representatives from relevant government departments, political and legal organs, industry organizations, and enterprises.

Shanghai No.2 Intermediate People¡¯s Court: White Paper on the Trial of Cases to Ensure a Law-Based Business Environment (2023)