CHINA Law and Practice Contributed by: Qingyou Wang, Yichen Lu, Chao Tang and Yuhe Gu, Anli Partners
In more complex or sensitive cases – such as those with many parties, large amounts of evidence, serious disputes over the law or major social impact – the court will usually reserve judgment, deliberate after the hearing, make any further inquiries needed, and then issue a written judgment within the statutory time limit. 7.8 General Timeframes for Proceedings First-Instance Timeline Filing and case acceptance After the claimant submits a statement of claim, the court should decide within seven days whether to accept the case. If the statutory requirements for filing are met, the court will register the case and notify the parties. If not, it will issue a ruling denying acceptance of the case, against which the claimant may appeal. Service and defence Within five days of registering the case, the court serves a copy of the statement of claim on the defend- ant, who shall submit a statement of defence within fifteen days of receipt. Within five days of receiving the defence, the court serves a copy on the claimant. Ordinary first-instance time limit Under the ordinary procedure, the case should be concluded within six months from the date of case acceptance. In special circumstances, this may be extended by a further six months with the court president’s approval. Any further extension requires approval from the higher court. Summary procedure Cases following the summary procedure should be resolved within three months of case acceptance, with the possibility of a one-month extension, subject to the court president’s approval. Small-claims procedure Cases under the small-claims procedure should be concluded within two months from case accept- ance, with a possible one-month extension subject to approval by the court president. Hearing/trial and judgment The court must notify the parties and other partici- pants in the proceedings at least three days before
the hearing/trial. If a party is dissatisfied with the first- instance judgment, it may file an appeal with the high- er court within fifteen days from the date of service of the written judgment. If dissatisfied with a ruling, the appeal period is ten days from service of the ruling. Second-Instance Timeline Time limit for appeal: A party that wishes to appeal a first-instance judgment must do so within fifteen days from the date of service of the written judgment. To appeal a ruling, the time limit is ten days from the date of service of the ruling. Filing and transfer The notice of appeal must be filed with the trial court that presided over the original proceeding. That court should serve a copy of the notice of appeal on the other party within five days. The other party then has fifteen days from receipt to submit a statement of defence. Within five days of receiving the notice of appeal and the defence, the original court must transfer the entire case file and evidence to the appel- late court, which should register the appeal within five days of receipt. Time limit for appeals against judgments Appeals against first-instance judgments should be concluded within three months from the date the appellate court registers the case. In special circum- stances, this period may be extended with the approv- al of the court president. Time limit for appeals against rulings Appeals against first-instance rulings should be decided by a final ruling within thirty days from the date the appellate court registers the case. The statutory trial periods do not include the time tak- en for public announcements, expert appraisals, set- tlement negotiations between the parties, the handling of jurisdictional objections raised by the parties or the resolution of jurisdictional disputes between courts. In practice, the actual duration may vary depending on the complexity of the case, the workload, and the court’s internal arrangements. In particular, in Beijing, due to the heavy caseload, an ordinary first-instance commercial case can, in practice, take around 12 to
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