Vice Director He Junqi of Social and Legal Affairs Committee of National Religion of CCPPCC Guangzhou Committee led a research group visited GZMC for research on the morning of September 3, 2019. President showed a warm welcome to them, introduced the trial of GZMC in recent years and made a report for the implementation of the Outline for the Development Plan of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Areafrom the perspectives of handling the Area’s maritime cases fairly and efficiently, carrying out“Great Visit, Great Research” activity, serving the new requirement of maritime justice for the Area’s construction. Also within the Area, we will explore maritime judicial cooperation, consociation with universities and academic societies, expand communication among law officersand co-cultivate maritime top talents. Director Song Weili of executive Board introduced the practices and explorations in the area offoreign-related trial, Internet trial, people’s accessors from HK and Macao, invited mediators and the consideration for the reform of working mechanism. Members of the Committee including Professor Yang Songcai, director Chen Zhumei and senior consultant Zeng Baochun made deep exchanges with us on the issues of the feasibility of setting up cross-border trial institution and the harmony and application of litigation rules in the Area, deepen cooperation in regional justice and Area’s law firms, the improvement of arbitration disputes settlement mechanism, encourage and support the legal service agencies go global, build an Area’s high-efficiency dispute resolution mechanism and explore the construction of judicial talent exchanges mechanism. According to members of the group, GZMC rich in experience,  innovative in exploration and creative in enlightment when it comes to serving and safeguarding the construction of the Greater Bay Area, which provides bountiful practical information for the research of them, and it also beneficial to both deepening the research on the judicial cooperation and jointly serving the construction for the Area.    

Four people from the People’s Procuratorate of Guangdong Province Guangzhou Branch of Railway Transportation visited GZMC on the morning of August 27, 2019. They were Secretary of Party Leadership Group and Procurator Genral Li Xiaodong, Office Director Xue Qi, Director of Civil Administrative Procuratorial Department Weng Chongwu and Secretary of the Party Group Wu Ming. President Ye Liudong and Vice President Wang Yufei warmly received them. Accompanied by Ye, Li was shown around the Nanzhou court building, litigation service center, watched a trial video recording of court hearing in the Internet courtroom and listened as Deputy Chief Judge Xu Chunlong introduced the case-filling of maritime litigation, diversified dispute resolution and lawyer reconciliation studio. Ye introduced the jurisdiction of cases and the trial situation in the following discussion. This year, GZMC accepted 3293 new cases and closed 2585, a year-on-year increase of 85.52% and 99.92% respectively. The amount of subject of accepted cases is RMB 8.6 billion, the settlement rate within time limits is 98.25%, mediation rate is 14.88% and withdrawal is 41.47%. Some of the casesbefore GZMC are quiet foreign-related, new in type, highly specialized and complicated, and hard to handle, and the subject matters are huge financially. The judge teams are highly professional and no one has ever been under charges connected with case handling and enforcement since the establishment of GZMC. And the informatization forged ahead steadily and smart court construction has made some achievements. Li thanked for the hospitality of Ye and said that courts and procuratorates should strengthen cooperation in team construction, informatization and sharing of specialists think tank, further explore the new patterns of supervision and support of procuratorates for courts under the new circumstances, thence advocate the correct implementation of law and jointly make contribution to the construction of the “Belt and Road Initiative” and the Greater Bay Area.  They also made deep exchanges on the specialized issues like the jurisdiction and trial of maritime criminal cases and the trial of marine ecological public interest litigation cases. Office Director Ye Zuxi and Research Office Director Ni Xuewei and secretary Bai Shaguang also took part in the reception.  

The Forum “Focus on the Development Outline, Realize Bay Area’s Innovative Development” was held in Nansha District of Guangzhou on the afternoon of August 15, 2019. It was hosted by Supply Chain Institute of Studies for the Great Bay Area and co-organized by Nansha Development Area Management Committee and Shanghai Maritime Universities and so on. About 360 peoples presented to it, they were Vice Secretary of Nansha District Committee and Warden Dong Ke, Secretary of the Party Committee of Shanghai Maritime University Song Baoru, representatives from departments of Nansha district, supply chainenterprises, harbor and shipping enterprises and other industries, and the press. Vice President Wang Yufei, Director Deng Yufeng and Vice Director Xu Chunlong of Case-filing Division were invited to it. Focusing on the topics of technology development of harbor and shipping network intelligence, business environment of Nansha FTA, future shipping development in the Bay Area, HK participateion in the construction of the Bay Area, how to seek development by seizing the opportunity in these unprecedented changes in a century, Vice President of SMU Yan Wei, vice director Pan Yuzhang of Nansha Development Area Management Committee, Counselor Liang Jianwei of People’s Government of Guangdong Province, Director Wang Guofan of investHK, media commentator of Phoenix TV, researcher Shi Qiping of CUHK and SSAAPS shared and made exchanges with the participants separately. A round-table conference for the discussion of infrastructure connectivity in the Greater Bar Area was held, Deputy Director Zhang Lechun of Bureau of Construction and Communication of Nansha District, Vice General Manager Ma Jinqi of Guangzhou Port Group, Deputy Secretary-General Feng Jiapei of HK Shipowners Association, Secretary-General Yang Zicheng of HK Cruise and Yacht Association and Chairman Li Guohui of Macao Logistics and Freight Association participated in it. Vice President Wang introduced some measures adopted by GZMC to help with the development of the Bay Area during the forum and made exchanges with some guests on the issues of how to improve the safeguard of maritime justice, provide assistance for the construction of the Bay Area and the development of FTA.  

Member of Party Leadership Group and Vice President Hu Ying and Director Yang Ming and Vice Director Yang Jie of Executive Board of Guangdong Higher People’s Court came to GZMC on July 31, 2019. The work of “basically solving enforcement difficulties” of GZMC were evaluated and reviewed by them, and they operated research and guidance for us under the theme of “remain true to our original aspiration and keep our mission firmly in mind”. President Ye made a report of the main methods and achievements in the work of “basically solving enforcement difficulties” in more than three years of GZMC, and analyzed the difficulties and problems in execution circle, application of enforcement measures and the construction of enforcement difficulties solving mechanism. And he suggested that the maritime executive should separately assessed, GZMC should be taken into combined execution of various departments under the leadership of provincial Party committee and strengthen the executive team building. Hu said that after listening to the report from Ye, he felt that GZMC do well in execution, morale of the executive staffs is high, the quality index and key work are complete in accordance with the requirement of higher court, and they solve difficulties effectively by the combination of maritime cases and team status and further explore a work mode which meet the regulation in maritime trial and enforcement. As to the difficulties and the request of GZMC, he will strive to solve it as soon as possible.He hoped that GZMC will promote its execution into a high level combined with “Five Year Plan Outline” and improve its auxiliary and supporting facilities to keep its lead in maritime courts. Hu also inspected the command center actually works and visited the Internet courtroom and Guangzhou International Maritime Judicial Base of the Supreme People’s Court.  

The 27th national maritime trial seminar successfully held at the 3rd-floor meeting hall in the new trial building of GZMC on July 12, 2019. About 110 peoples of leaders, research office directors, paper authors from ten maritime courts, chief judges and judge representatives from Superior People’s Courts and special speakers attended the meeting. Member of the Party Leadership and Vice President Luo Dongchuan, Director Wang Shumei and the judge team of Civil Adjudication Tribunal NO.4 of the Supreme People’s Court presented and Luo made a speech for it. Luo pointed out that maritime trial theoretical research is the basis of judicial service for maritime power strategy, the important measures to improve the maritime legal system, the key to enhancing maritime judicial capacity and the window to demonstrate China maritime judicial image. And it should stir into the right political direction, by providing theoretical support for the improvement of relevant legislation and unified judicial adjudication criterion for promoting the maritime trial system and modernization of trial ability. He requested that the current and the future period of time, maritime trial should focus on meeting the priority tasks of the Party and the government and take into consideration both the domestic and the international situations, by deepening the implementation of maritime trial high-quality strategy and make steady headway in the construction of international maritime judicial center as a crucial step, to improve the level of it in perspective in serve the overall interests, high-quality in case handling, systematic in system construction, informatization in litigation service and specialization in team construction, thence provide a strong justice service guarantee for the Belt and Road Initiative and other implementation of major decisions and arrangements of the state and the Party. The theme of this meeting is to carry out the important spirit of the speeches in maritime trial made by President Zhou Qiang and Vice President Luo Dongchuan, research the measures of maritime judicial service for the Belt and Road, Yangtze R    iver Economic Zone, free trade zone and the Greater Bay area, discuss the amendment of Special Maritime Procedure Law, electronic evidence in maritime trial and other issues in trial practice and exchange maritime trial experiences.Twelve winning paper authors made presentations around the theme, and specialists gave their incisive comment to it. Presidents of maritime courts made exchanges in maritime judicial service in national strategy during the president parallel forum. Some chief judges and senior judges also made thorough discussions in voyage charter party, actual carrier, the port operator and multimodal transport contract. There were 96 papers submitted to the seminar and 29 of them were from GZMC, which had a rich harvest in the amount and awards. Judge Xu Chunlong made a speech in the meeting.  

Shipping Law Research Institute of Guangdong Province Law Society, 2019 CSAE of Traffic Law Research Institute of Guangzhou Law Society and the founding congress of Guangzhou Shipping Law Research Society convened in GZMC on the morning of June 29, 2019. The opening ceremony was presided by lawyer Zhao Shuzhou of Wang Jing & Co., President of GZMC Ye Liudong and Vice Secretary-General of Guangdong Province Law Society Xue Xiaoguang made an opening speech for it. President Ye emphasized that unmanned ships are the latest outcome of technological innovation, and it has become the hot topic in maritime circles with its increasingly maturity. So we should seize the opportunity and plan in advance, by explore and establish rules for unmanned ships and related law issues so that the Great Bay Area can have a say in it. In the first session of the meeting, the discussion on the issue of “Compensation for Vessel-Induced Oil Pollution Damage” was presided by Ni Xuewei, who is the Vice-chairman of Shipping Law Research Institute of Guangdong Province Law Society and Director of Research Office of GZMC. Some people put forward their views and analyzed some relevant law issues of it, they were Director Xu Guangyu of Guang Yu & Co., Director Yang Yunfu of Yang&LinCo. Law Firm and judge Wu Guining of GZMC. Guo Ping, Vice Chairman of Shipping Law Research Institute of Guangdong Province Law Society and Professor of School of Law of Sun Yat-senUniversity, chaired the second discussion of “Relevant Law Issues related to Unmanned Ships”. Several people shared their thoughts on the unmanned ships and analyzed the relevant legal issues of it. And director Pan Deng of Yunzhou Intelligent technology co., LTD explained the fast technological development of unmanned ships from the perspective of intelligent system design. The meeting was a great success.  

Sponsored by China Maritime Arbitration Commission(CMAC), China Maritime Justice and Arbitration Summit 2019 was held in Shanghaion May 22, 2019. The theme of this Summit was “challenges, innovations and prospects for China maritime justice and arbitration in the New Era”, about 350 peoples from courts, arbitrator and lawyers circles, enterprises, the bar and academic institutes were present. The opening ceremony was presided by the Secretary-General of CAMC Gu Chao. Vice president of the Supreme People’s Court Luo Dongchuan, member of the Standing Committee and Executive Vice Mayor of Shanghai Chen Yin and Vice President of CCPIT and Vice Director of CAMC Lu Peng attended and made speechest. Chief Judge Wang Shumei of Civil Adjudication Tribunal NO.4 of the Supreme People’s Court delivered a keynote speech for the Summit on “Diversified Dispute Settlement Mechanism and Construction of the International Maritime Justice Center”. In his speech, Luo pointed out that at the backdrop of the deepening implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative, it embraces an important practical significance for CMAC to host this Summit. He emphasized we should steadily expand the international influence of China maritime justice by giving full play to maritime trial and by promoting the development of the principles and rules of international laws through more typical cases. To promote the quality of maritime arbitration, we should further improve judicial support and supervisory mechanisms on maritime arbitration. We should give priority to the non-litigation resolution of disputes and provide convenience for maritime arbitration institution to take part in multiple dispute settlement mechanism construction, thence to build a China maritime arbitration brand with an international influence. By supporting and guiding maritime courts and CAMC and other arbitration institutions to build a dispute settlement platform of organic linking for arbitration, conciliation and litigation, we can practically improve the efficiency of maritime disputes settlement. Finally, we should resolutely promot the amendment of Maritime Law and start the research on the revision of Special Maritime Procedure Law as soon as possible, actively participate in the drafting and formulation of the relevant international maritime conventions, thus contribute Chinese wisdom to the perfection of international maritime rules. Director of Research Office Ni Xuewei of GZMC was invited to the Summit and he talked about “maritime justice’s support and supervision for maritime arbitration” when it came to the third topic “analysis and practice of hot issues of maritime justice and arbitration in the‘Belt and Road’”. According to the latest judicial cases, Ni emphatically introduced how maritime justice support and supervises maritime arbitration, he gave some advice on the revision of Arbitration Law, like adding non-organization arbitration and moderate judicial review of the substantive matters in arbitration.  

Report on Maritime Trial 2018 issued by GZMC in the press conference on May 17, 2019, which is the third time of such and the only onein Chinese, English and Portuguese and the ninth consecutive time to publish it in Chinese and English since 2010.   White Paper on Maritime Trial is contained more than 20,000 words and divided into nine parts. Concerning the issues of creditor’s registration procedures, freight forwarding, port warehousing, terminal leasing, fishery rights, marine ecological environment, maritime administrative litigation, non-litigation disputes, and execution procedures, it put forward some suggestions base on analyzing the causes and interpreting the risks, which is aims to help shipping market entities prevent risks actively and to guide maritime administrative organs to strengthen law-based administration,thence jointly make new contributions to the new development of the shipping industry in the new era.   The Trial also reports the problems found during the operation of the shipping market in maritime trial and put forward eight advises to GZMC as a state adjudicatory organization accordingly. The conference was cover by several media.  

On the morning of May 6, 2019, including Wang Xinpeng, five students of School of Law of Xiamen University visited GZMC and for their study on international judicial dialogue(IJD) and the innovative role of Chinese courts in the implementation of the Belt and Road initiative. Director Ni Xuewei warmly received them. Court of law are the main protagonists in IJD. GZMC has done much itself and enriched it including judges visits and exchanges, participation in international conventions establishment, cllegiate-benching people’s assessors from HK and Macao, application of foreign laws in accordance with conflict rules, recognition and execution of foreign court’s judgements. Ni introduced to the guests that in maritime trial, maritime parallel litigation, forum non conveniens, international comity and so on are frequently adopted as ways of IJD while finding and application of foreign laws are a kind of it. How do we keep a balance between national judicial sovereignty and recognition and execution of foreign judgements? The points lies with the comprehension and application of the premiss of reciprocity and execution of foreign judgements on reciprocity. GZMC has actively conducted multinational justice dialogue in various forms under the Belt and Road initiative and the Greater Bay Area construction. Wang and his companions also visited the new trial building, litigation service center, the technology court, Guangzhou Maritime Judicial Base of the Supreme People’s Court, Law Branch of Guangzhou Library and watched the five-minute publicity film of the court. Vice director Xu Chunlong introduced to the guests the specific practices of legal services provided by Case-filling Division for mariners and other disadvantaged groups.  

President Ye was invited to the maritime finance and law high-end summit of The First China “Dongjiang”Shipping Industry Week 2019 on April 23, 2019, and made a summary statement for the conference as an expert. Director Ni Xuewei and Secretary of the Party Group Bai Shaguang also attended it. The conference was co-hosted by Management Committee of Tianjin Dongjiang Bonded Port Area, Tianjin Maritime Court and China Maritime Arbitration Commission. More than 60 industry experts, who come from China Maritime Arbitration Commission, Institute of International Law of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Guangzhou, Tianjin, Shanghai and Dalian Maritime Court, EIBC, leasing companies and shipping companies, were present the conference. They opened discussion on a raft of hot issues in maritime finance and law area, including Prevention of Vessels Financing Risks, Value Assessment with Charted Ships and Ships Asset Transaction, International Sanctions and Validity of Marine Insurance and Identification ofLeasing Vessels Ownership and Undertaking Tort Liability. During the professional review session, Ye pointed out that financial lease of vessels is a new type of financial operation mode that integrate with finance, ship trade and shipping service. The revision of Maritime Law has entered a critical stage, whether the financial lease of vessels should be regulated as an independent chapter needs thorough discussion and full demonstration. A major challenge arises when it comes to maritime trial practice, as cases related to financial lease of vessels disputes are in a small quantity while large in the object of dispute financially, where new situations and problems keep cropping up and related laws but regulations are not comprehensive and consummate. For its advantages of efficiency, flexibility, low-cost and confidentiality, we should give full play to the role of maritime arbitration in terms of financial lease of vessels cases, and actively guide the parties to choose from multiple disputes settlement mechanisms like arbitration to solve their problems.