On 14 October 2016, Vice President He Rong of the Supreme People’s Court Visited Guangzhou Maritime Court.

After visiting the new trial building and hearing the introduction about overall trial conditions, judge training, and informationization construction, she highly appreciated the achievements in all aspects the court has made, especially on comprehensively carrying forward the strategy of producing fine works and deepening the integration of informationization construction and trial works.

 “Serving the national strategies of ‘One Belt, One Road’ and building our nation into a marine power, you should focus your work on the judicial needs of building Guangzhou into an international shipping hub with a global mind.” She also encouraged the court to enhance international judicial capability, strengthen judicial openness to improve international maritime judicial credibility, vigorously advance Guangzhou Maritime Court to be world top-class.

     On 14 January 2016, President Zhou Qiang of the Supreme People’s Court visited Guangzhou Maritime Court.

     President Zhou Qiang highly appreciated the achievements of Guangzhou Maritime Court over the recent years after listening to the work report of the court. “Guangzhou Maritime Court has tried a large number of cases since its set-up, and some of the cases have exerted tremendous influence at home and abroad. This is good for Guangdong Province in promoting the strategy of developing a strong marine economy and building Guangzhou into an international shipping hub”, said Zhou.

     “Guangzhou Maritime Court proactively deepens judicial reform and is leading some of the judicial explorations nationwide. Since 1999, the court has decentralized judicial power to collegiate bench and empowered the presiding judges to issue judicial judgments. Also presented in these judicial judgments are different opinions of the minority of the judges and this helps generate positive social effects. Your court also makes fruitful achievement in judge training and building of a high-quality legal team. Your English website archives translations of judicial judgments, so young judges may quote the case in English. It is a very good promoting channel for the court and will add weight to our influence on international maritime trials if the court’s judicial documents are quoted by foreign judicial organs,” added Zhou.

     “To become an international maritime judicial center, you must work for the people, ensure fairness, continuously improve the level of trial, and enhance working capability”. Zhou encourages the court to proceed on the past experiences and achievements, keep improving trial skills, and deepen judicial reform proactively and steadily under new conditions. “Zheng Er, President of the Supreme People’s Court of Guangdong, encourages your court to become ‘leading in China and known to the World’. I wish you continue to spearhead the building of an international maritime judicial center and become a model for your counterparts.”

     “Maritime trial is important judicial safeguard for promoting the strategy of developing marine economy and building international shipping hub, and is also a significant part of the rule of governance by law. Maritime courts are facing great prospects. You must follow the guidelines of the National Maritime Trial Meeting and stick to self-discipline and down to earth moralities. You must adhere to the goal proposed by President Xi to maintain fairness in every case and work for the people. You must vigorously propel judicial reform, improve self construction, give full play to the role of maritime court as push hand in trial, and lawfully deal with every maritime case, with a mind centering on the tasks of building our nation into a marine power, carrying out the strategy of ‘One Belt, One Road’ and developing a strong marine economy in Guangdong Province”, said Zhou.

     President Zhou also visited the judicial tribunal to meet with front-line judges. He encouraged them to constantly perfecting their skills and work out more valuable cases. He also pushes them to work with a global mind and study maritime trails over the world and follow up international maritime trials.

     At 15:00 of January 14, Guangzhou Maritime Court held an online auction for M/V “Lanhai Chuangxin” in Southern United Assets & Equity Exchange. After 42 rounds of bids, the ship was auctioned at RMB 20.2 million, 4.7 million higher than the starting price, a premium rate of 30.32%.

     Under the new circumstance of internet development, with a view to handling judicial auction in a lawful and transparent manner and ensuring fairness and accessibility for the people, Guangzhou Maritime Court has held online auction for disposal of ships and onboard cargoes since 2014. Online auction removes geographical limitations and makes information disclosure of auction subject more transparent. This attracts more bidders and maximizes the value of action subject. Technically, online auction efficiently walls up the chances of “bid rigging, bid collusion or black case work” which are common in physical auction.

    On 14 November 2015, M/V “Ji Xin 9” and M/V “Guang Yun” collided in waters off the Nanpeng Island, leading to the sinking of “Guang Yun” and “Ji Xin 9” being put into Shantou Port to await maritime investigation.

    On the morning of Friday, 27 November 2015, the ship owner of “Guang Yun” made an urgent call to Guangzhou Maritime Court Shantou Tribunal, applying for the arrest of “Ji Xin 9” which was still havened in Shantou Port, fearing that the ship might depart any instant. The ship owner of “Guang Yun” also faxed the Ship Arrest Application, materials of the subject, evidence, LOU and other needed materials for ship arrest to the court.

    Considering the distant location of the applicant, Guangzhou Maritime Court enlisted the assistance of Qingdao Maritime Court of the place where the applicant resided in case filing examination: after the applicant filed the original materials to Qingdao Maritime Court, Qingdao Court conducted the preliminary examination and then Guangzhou Maritime Court Shantou Tribunal proceeded with online examination and accepted the case; Qingdao Court later sent the original materials to Shantou Tribunal. Flowing such procedure and with the assistance of Qingdao Maritime Court from a distance, Shantou Tribunal successfully arrested “Ji Xin 9” on the afternoon of the same day. The ship owner of “Guang Yun” highly applauded the innovative case-acceptance model and efficient working style of the court.

Guangzhou Maritime Court releases the Annual Report on Trial 2014 in a news conference held on the afternoon of 24 April 2015. Attended the conference are more than 50 people of judges from Guangzhou Maritime Court, experts and scholars of maritime law, delegates of port and shipping enterprises, lawyers, and news reporters.

The Annual Report is in eight parts which dedicates to expounding seven major legal issues in the judicial practice in 2014 concerning electronic evidence, cargo delivery without the original B/L, determination of cargo losses, ship collision damages, fund of limitation of liability for maritime claims, maritime administrative proceedings, and fraudulent lawsuits. Guangzhou Maritime Court has taken steps to analyze the causes as well as the anticipated risks of these cases and further provide risk prevention advices in the form of judicial suggestion to guide relevant departments in policy-making and enterprises in business operation.

    On 24 and 31 January, Guangzhou Maritime Court received two visiting delegations from Hong Kong Seamen’s Union. It’s a 76-people delegation comprising of representatives from Hong Kong Seamen’s Union, Hong Kong Logistics Management Staff Association, a couple of Hong Kong shipping companies and shipping colleges.

    To promote professional skills and comprehensive quality of judicial personnel in handling foreign-related maritime/admiralty cases, Guangzhou Maritime Court held 2014 (Hong Kong) Training Course on Judicial Expertise in Handling Maritime/ Admiralty Cases during the period from 17th to 21st December 2014. Seventeen judges and police officers such as Huang Weiqing, Ni Xuewei and Han Haibin participated in the training. Lecturers of the training are professors from China Legal Service (H.K.) Ltd. under the administration of the Ministry of Justice, Marine Department of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Seamen'.s Union, and School of Law of City University of Hong Kong, who are specialized in dealing with cases in relation to bills of lading and arbitration proceedings. Through this training, participants got acquainted with maritime judicial and arbitration practice of Anglo-American legal systems, which will help Chinese judicial personnel successfully try foreign-related maritime/admiralty cases and popularize trial practice and experience of Chinese maritime courts. 

    Guangdong Maritime Trial Communication and Coordination Meeting 2014 was held on 6^th and 7^th November 2014 in Zhuhai.

    Attending the meeting were more than 70 front-line judges from the Forth Civil Division of Supreme People’s Court, the Forth Civil Division of Guangdong Higher People’s Court and Guangzhou Maritime Court. Mr. Luo Dongchuan, presiding judge of the Forth Civil Division of Supreme People’s Court, and Mr. Huo Min, vice president of Guangdong Higher People’s Court attended the meeting and delivered an important speech.

    Presiding judge Luo highly appreciated the achievements in maritime trail of Guangdong province made over the past three decades and encouraged the judges to keep the spirit of innovation with a view to dipping into and promoting the reform of maritime judicial system. “The mechanism of trial communication and coordination can serve as an exchange platform for and between the two levels of courts, which plays a constructive role to promote a higher efficiency in trail work, a unified judge scale, and to improve the trial work quality” said Huo, the vice president of Guangdong Higher People’s Court.

    During the meeting, the participants had reviewed the trail work of Guangzhou Maritime Court through 2013. In the year of 2013, Guangzhou Maritime Court received 2098 cases, with a subject value totaling RMB6.636 billion, among which, container-involved cases experienced a substantial growth. The average duration for the first instant trial for cases newly received has been substantially cut down. In 2014, the court has witnessed an increase of cases of disputes over damages for ship collision and frequent occurrence of cases of disputes over seafarers’ labor contracts. New changes also include a substantial decrease of cases of disputes arising from procedures and substantial increase of cases of disputes over the registration of creditor’s rights.

     Mr. Du Yixing, the vice presiding judge of the Forth Civil Division of Guangdong Higher People’s Court, reported to the meeting about the remand and amendment during the second trial of maritime cases. The meeting also discussed over issues in relation to trials of cases of disputes over damages for personal injury at sea, acceptance of electronic evidence, rules on evidence, as well as several perplexed issues in maritime trails.