CHINA Trends and Developments Contributed by: Michael Ma, Dacheng Law Offices
• requests by the claimant to increase claims; • litigation requests related to the case made by third parties with independent claim rights; and • judicial supervision procedures (only includ - ing actions initiated by third parties during the enforcement process, which, as they do not usually involve new claims, makes it difficult to establish the crime of false lawsuit), corpo - rate bankruptcy procedures and enforcement procedures. Parties Faced with debt pressure or for other motives, some parties may resort to false lawsuits to create fictitious creditor-debtor relationships in order to avoid debt obligations, which not only harms the legitimate rights of creditors but also disrupts the normal economic order. Further - more, in matrimonial and succession cases, some parties may launch false lawsuits in an effort to obtain more property. For example, in a case in Beijing, Cao filed a lawsuit at the Fengtai Court against his son Y, seeking to have all the properties in the name of his deceased wife Qi transferred to himself, citing a dispute over statutory inheritance. Cao submitted fabricated materials on the “time of Qi’s death and the situation of the children” to the police station. On the day of the trial, Cao and a young man holding Y’s ID, claiming him to be Y, appeared at the Fengtai Court for the hearing. Cao reached a settlement agreement with the young man, leading the court to make a civil order. The court considered that Cao had initiated civil litigation with fabricated facts, dis - rupted the judicial order and infringed on the legitimate rights of others, thereby constituting the crime of false lawsuit, and sentenced him to nine months in prison and a fine of CNY5,000.
In the case of Li and Wang’s false lawsuit, Wang and his ex-wife Xuan reached an agreement on divorce in March 2015. In 2017, Xuan sued Wang at the Dunhua Court for the division of post-divorce property. Wang, along with his law - yer Li, conspired to avoid dividing a Land Rover with Xuan by falsely creating joint marital debts and informed a third party, Zhang, of this plot. They jointly forged a vehicle mortgage agree - ment and promissory note, allowing Zhang to sue Wang and Xuan at the Dunhua Court, claim - ing CNY800,000 for the fictitious joint marital debt involving the vehicle. Zhang later applied to withdraw the lawsuit, which was granted by the Dunhua Court on the same day. The Dunhua Court found that Li and Wang had committed the crime of false litigation as accomplices and sentenced them to two months of detention and one year of probation, respectively. Lawyers According to Article 6 of the “Interpretation on False Litigation”, if litigation agents, witnesses, appraisers and other participants in litigation conspire with others to initiate false civil liti - gation, provide false testimony intentionally or issue false appraisal opinions, jointly engaging in the behaviours specified in the first three clauses of Article 307(1) of the Criminal Law (ie, behav - iours constituting false lawsuit crimes), they shall be convicted and punished according to the pro - visions on joint crimes. Therefore, lawyers who provide false evidence or make false statements in civil litigation may also be found to have committed the crime of false litigation as joint offenders. For example, in a typical case published by the Supreme Peo - ple’s Court, Du, who was acting as a lawyer in civil litigation, forged evidence and made false statements four times between 2017 and 2019 to fabricate civil legal relationships and disputes,
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