Digest

In December 2022, the Supreme People’s Court of China released Guiding Case No. 196.  The ruling upon which this Guiding Case is based was rendered by the First International Commercial Court of the Supreme People’s Court.  This commercial court and the Second International Commercial Court of the Supreme People’s Court were established in 2018 to help accomplish the following goals:

[…] to impartially and promptly adjudicate international commercial cases in accordance with law, equally protect the legal rights and interests of Chinese and foreign parties, create a stable, fair, transparent, and convenient international business environment governed by the rule of law, and serve and safeguard the construction of the “Belt and Road” […].

To what extent have these two international commercial courts helped accomplish these goals?  Guiding Case No. 196 helps shed some light on this issue.  In this SinoRules&Cases^TM piece, to help readers fully understand this Guiding Case, SINOTALKS^® provides explanatory notes in appendices and footnotes to discuss details that are not addressed in the Guiding Case.

“The ruling upon which this Guiding Case is based was rendered by the First International Commercial Court of the Supreme People’s Court.”

Keywords

Civil
Application for Confirmation of the Validity of an Arbitration Agreement
Formation of Arbitration Clause

Main Points of the Adjudication

1. […].

2. […].  Where, in the course of entering into a contract, the parties negotiated for an arbitration clause and agreed to submit [disputes] to arbitration, the formation and validity of the arbitration clause are not affected by whether or not the contract has been formed.

Related Legal Rule(s)

Article 16, Article 19, and Article 20 Paragraph 1 of the Arbitration Law of the People’s Republic of China

Basic Facts of the Case

[…]

Results of the Adjudication

[…]

Reasons for the Adjudication

[…]

“[…] arbitration clauses in contracts and stand-alone arbitration agreements are two types of arbitration agreements.”

“In judicial practice, the two issues of whether a contract has been formed and whether an arbitration clause therein has been formed are often tangled up.”

Appendix 1

Arbitration Law of the People’s Republic of China (2017 Version)

[…]

Appendix 2

Civil Procedure Law of the People’s Republic of China (2017 Version)

[…]

Appendix 3

Provisions of the Supreme People’s Court on Several Issues Concerning the Establishment of the International Commercial Courts

[…]

Appendix 4

Contract Law of the People’s Republic of China

[…]

---

^† The citation of this piece is: The Editorial Board of SINOTALKS^®, Guiding Case No. 196: Luck Treat Limited and Shenzhen Zhong Yuan Cheng Commercial Investment Holdings Co., Ltd., A Case Concerning an Application for Confirmation of the Validity of an Arbitration Agreement, SINOTALKS.COM^®, SinoRules&Cases™, Mar. 10, 2023, https://sinotalks.com/sinorulescases/guiding-case-196.  After being discussed and passed by the Adjudication Committee of the Supreme People’s Court, Guiding Case No. 196 was released on December 27, 2022.

This translation of Guiding Case No. 196 was prepared, with research support from Xin Shen, by members of the Editorial Board of SINOTALKS^®, and was finalized by Nathan Harpainter, Dimitri Phillips, and Dr. Mei Gechlik.  Minor editing, such as splitting long paragraphs and adding a few words included in square brackets, was done to make the piece more comprehensible to readers.  Unless stated otherwise, the Digest, any Appendix, and all footnotes have been added by SINOTALKS^®.  The translated text is otherwise a direct translation of the original, Chinese text released by the Supreme People’s Court.

Related Articles

Other Publications