On 8 March 2025, the 2025 Work Report of the Supreme People’s Court of China (“Work Report”) was presented to the Third Session of the 14th National People’s Congress, which reviewed in detail the achievements of the Supreme People’s Court (“SPC”) in 2024 and briefly outlined its work arrangements for 2025. According to the Work Report, in 2024, China’s judicial system effectively promoted the construction of a unified national market, the development of new high-quality productivity, the improvement of the business environment, and the expansion of high-level opening up to the outside world, thus promoting China’s high-quality development.
In terms of helping to build a unified national market, the SPC maintains fair competition in the market through the anti-monopoly law and the anti-unfair competition Law, and promotes the efficient allocation of market resources through the bankruptcy law. On 1 June 2024, the SPC promulgated the Interpretation of Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in the Trial of Civil Dispute Cases Arising from Monopolistic Conduct (“Judicial Interpretation”). The Judicial Interpretation is a new comprehensive judicial interpretation issued by the SPC in response to China’s Anti-Monopoly Law revised in 2022, which improves China’s anti-monopoly system. In 2024, China identified 31 cases of monopoly; concluded 10,000 cases of unfair competition, such as infringement of trade secrets and collusion in bidding; and concluded 30,000 bankruptcy cases. In the Work Report, the SPC specifically mentioned an anti-unfair competition case. In this case, Sun and others set up an anonymous peer company and misappropriated the original company’s technical secrets for over 10 years. For this reason, the court applied punitive damages and ordered the company, Sun, and others to jointly compensate RMB 160 million (equivalent to US$ 22 million). In addition, China revitalized more than RMB 790.2 billion (equivalent to US$ 109.127 billion) in assets through the 30,000 bankruptcy cases concluded in 2024.
In terms of serving the development of new high-quality productivity, the SPC focuses on the review of intellectual property cases. On 1 January 2019, the Intellectual Property Court under the SPC was established. In the past six years, the court has concluded nearly 20,000 technical intellectual property appeals, among which the number and proportion of cases involving strategic emerging industries such as information technology, high-end equipment, biomedicine, and new materials have increased year by year, reaching 1,233 in 2024, accounting for 32.3%. For cases involving artificial intelligence disputes, the SPC pointed out that it supports the application of artificial intelligence following the law but opposes infringement using artificial intelligence technology.
In 2024, China concluded 494,000 intellectual property cases, which is the same as in 2023. Meanwhile, punitive damages were applied to 460 cases of serious malicious infringement, an increase of 44.2% year-on-year. According to the Work Report, in the case of Zhejiang Geely Holding Group and its subsidiaries (“Geely”) v. WM Motor Technology Group and its affiliates (“WM Motor”) for infringement of technical secrets on new energy vehicle chassis, nearly 40 senior executives and technical personnel of Geely’s subsidiaries collectively resigned and joined WM Motor, of which 30 were directly involved in the research and development of new energy vehicles after joining the company, and used their access to Geely’s chassis technology to secretly apply for 12 patents and launch the WM EX series of electric vehicles. Through overall analysis, the SPC determined that WM Motor had “organized and planned large-scale infringements” and applied punitive damages two times to WM Motor’s subsequent infringements based on the 2019 revision of the Anti-Unfair Competition Law, and finally sentenced RMB 640 million (equivalent to US$ 88 million) in compensation.
In terms of promoting the construction of a legal business environment, the SPC advocates equal protection of the legitimate rights and interests of all types of ownership economies, including state-owned and private ones. To protect the legitimate rights and interests of enterprises and entrepreneurs, the SPC has strengthened the review of illegal law enforcement in other places and profit-seeking law enforcement cases to avoid intervening in economic disputes by criminal means; severely punished crimes such as slandering and extortion against enterprises; retrial corrected 46 cases involving 72 people of property rights, and changed the verdict of 13 people to not guilty. To protect the rights and interests of small and medium-sized enterprises, on 27 August 2024.The SPC issued the Official Reply on the Issue of Validity of an Agreement Between Large Enterprises and Small and Medium-sized Enterprises That Payment is Contingent Upon Receipt of Payment from a Third Party to regulate large enterprises to pay accounts promptly by determining that the agreement between large enterprises and small enterprises to pay accounts after receiving third-party payments when signing purchase and sales contracts is invalid. On 21 August 2024, the SPC issued the Interpretation of Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in the Trial of Cases Involving Disputes over Punitive Damages for Food and Medicinal Products to balance the interests of consumers and business operators. In a case, a “professional claimant” purchased a large amount of bamboo shoots, a geographical indication product, and sued for compensation of RMB 90,000 (equivalent to US$ 12,429) because they did not meet the food testing standards. Based on the judicial interpretation, the court ordered the operator to return the payment and pay RMB 2,000 (equivalent to US$ 276.2) in compensation, 10 times the normal consumption amount, and issued a judicial suggestion to promote the upgrading of industry technology.
In terms of expanding high-level opening up to the outside world, the SPC, while equally protecting the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese and foreign parties, has ensured Chinese companies’ participation in international cooperation and competition through multiple channels. In 2024, China concluded 26,000 foreign-related civil and commercial cases, an increase of 8.3% year-on-year; concluded 18,000 commercial arbitration judicial review cases; and handled 5,644 international judicial assistance cases. On 2 January 2025, the SPC issued the first batch of typical cases of protecting the rights and interests of foreign investment to create a good investment environment for foreign investment. The SPC continues to improve the multi-faceted collaborative system of China’s extraterritorial law ascertainment mechanism, providing legal guidance and risk warnings for enterprises to “go overseas”. It is mentioned in the Work Report that a Chinese company signed a shipbuilding contract with a foreign company, and then the foreign company suspended the performance of its contractual obligations due to sanctions from a third country. In response, the Chinese court applied China’s Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law for the first time to accept the lawsuit and facilitate a settlement, allowing the Chinese company to successfully obtain the construction funds. In 2024, China continued to enhance the international influence of foreign-related trials. Based on the principle of reciprocity and bilateral treaties, China recognized and enforced 319 foreign judgments, an increase of 11.2% year-on-year. After 40 years of development, the number of cases received in maritime trials has increased from 18 in 1984 to 34,000 in 2024, of which more than 80,000 cases involved foreign countries, involving more than 100 countries and regions. Furthermore, a large number of Chinese cases have been included in the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law’s “CLOUT System”, the United Nations Environment Programme database, and the World Intellectual Property Organization case collection. This has not only increased the international recognition of China’s foreign-related cases but also made China's relevant adjudication rules have a certain influence in the international community.
In addition to promoting China’s high-quality development, the Work Report disclosed that in 2024, the SPC also achieved certain results in maintaining national security and social stability, protecting people’s livelihood and welfare, and deepening judicial system reform. According to the work arrangements for 2025, the SPC’s key tasks this year involve deepening judicial services for national strategies, optimizing the rule of law business environment, strengthening judicial protection of people’s livelihood, and promoting judicial reform and team building.
In terms of helping to build a unified national market, the SPC maintains fair competition in the market through the anti-monopoly law and the anti-unfair competition Law, and promotes the efficient allocation of market resources through the bankruptcy law. On 1 June 2024, the SPC promulgated the Interpretation of Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in the Trial of Civil Dispute Cases Arising from Monopolistic Conduct (“Judicial Interpretation”). The Judicial Interpretation is a new comprehensive judicial interpretation issued by the SPC in response to China’s Anti-Monopoly Law revised in 2022, which improves China’s anti-monopoly system. In 2024, China identified 31 cases of monopoly; concluded 10,000 cases of unfair competition, such as infringement of trade secrets and collusion in bidding; and concluded 30,000 bankruptcy cases. In the Work Report, the SPC specifically mentioned an anti-unfair competition case. In this case, Sun and others set up an anonymous peer company and misappropriated the original company’s technical secrets for over 10 years. For this reason, the court applied punitive damages and ordered the company, Sun, and others to jointly compensate RMB 160 million (equivalent to US$ 22 million). In addition, China revitalized more than RMB 790.2 billion (equivalent to US$ 109.127 billion) in assets through the 30,000 bankruptcy cases concluded in 2024.
In terms of serving the development of new high-quality productivity, the SPC focuses on the review of intellectual property cases. On 1 January 2019, the Intellectual Property Court under the SPC was established. In the past six years, the court has concluded nearly 20,000 technical intellectual property appeals, among which the number and proportion of cases involving strategic emerging industries such as information technology, high-end equipment, biomedicine, and new materials have increased year by year, reaching 1,233 in 2024, accounting for 32.3%. For cases involving artificial intelligence disputes, the SPC pointed out that it supports the application of artificial intelligence following the law but opposes infringement using artificial intelligence technology.
In 2024, China concluded 494,000 intellectual property cases, which is the same as in 2023. Meanwhile, punitive damages were applied to 460 cases of serious malicious infringement, an increase of 44.2% year-on-year. According to the Work Report, in the case of Zhejiang Geely Holding Group and its subsidiaries (“Geely”) v. WM Motor Technology Group and its affiliates (“WM Motor”) for infringement of technical secrets on new energy vehicle chassis, nearly 40 senior executives and technical personnel of Geely’s subsidiaries collectively resigned and joined WM Motor, of which 30 were directly involved in the research and development of new energy vehicles after joining the company, and used their access to Geely’s chassis technology to secretly apply for 12 patents and launch the WM EX series of electric vehicles. Through overall analysis, the SPC determined that WM Motor had “organized and planned large-scale infringements” and applied punitive damages two times to WM Motor’s subsequent infringements based on the 2019 revision of the Anti-Unfair Competition Law, and finally sentenced RMB 640 million (equivalent to US$ 88 million) in compensation.
In terms of promoting the construction of a legal business environment, the SPC advocates equal protection of the legitimate rights and interests of all types of ownership economies, including state-owned and private ones. To protect the legitimate rights and interests of enterprises and entrepreneurs, the SPC has strengthened the review of illegal law enforcement in other places and profit-seeking law enforcement cases to avoid intervening in economic disputes by criminal means; severely punished crimes such as slandering and extortion against enterprises; retrial corrected 46 cases involving 72 people of property rights, and changed the verdict of 13 people to not guilty. To protect the rights and interests of small and medium-sized enterprises, on 27 August 2024.The SPC issued the Official Reply on the Issue of Validity of an Agreement Between Large Enterprises and Small and Medium-sized Enterprises That Payment is Contingent Upon Receipt of Payment from a Third Party to regulate large enterprises to pay accounts promptly by determining that the agreement between large enterprises and small enterprises to pay accounts after receiving third-party payments when signing purchase and sales contracts is invalid. On 21 August 2024, the SPC issued the Interpretation of Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in the Trial of Cases Involving Disputes over Punitive Damages for Food and Medicinal Products to balance the interests of consumers and business operators. In a case, a “professional claimant” purchased a large amount of bamboo shoots, a geographical indication product, and sued for compensation of RMB 90,000 (equivalent to US$ 12,429) because they did not meet the food testing standards. Based on the judicial interpretation, the court ordered the operator to return the payment and pay RMB 2,000 (equivalent to US$ 276.2) in compensation, 10 times the normal consumption amount, and issued a judicial suggestion to promote the upgrading of industry technology.
In terms of expanding high-level opening up to the outside world, the SPC, while equally protecting the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese and foreign parties, has ensured Chinese companies’ participation in international cooperation and competition through multiple channels. In 2024, China concluded 26,000 foreign-related civil and commercial cases, an increase of 8.3% year-on-year; concluded 18,000 commercial arbitration judicial review cases; and handled 5,644 international judicial assistance cases. On 2 January 2025, the SPC issued the first batch of typical cases of protecting the rights and interests of foreign investment to create a good investment environment for foreign investment. The SPC continues to improve the multi-faceted collaborative system of China’s extraterritorial law ascertainment mechanism, providing legal guidance and risk warnings for enterprises to “go overseas”. It is mentioned in the Work Report that a Chinese company signed a shipbuilding contract with a foreign company, and then the foreign company suspended the performance of its contractual obligations due to sanctions from a third country. In response, the Chinese court applied China’s Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law for the first time to accept the lawsuit and facilitate a settlement, allowing the Chinese company to successfully obtain the construction funds. In 2024, China continued to enhance the international influence of foreign-related trials. Based on the principle of reciprocity and bilateral treaties, China recognized and enforced 319 foreign judgments, an increase of 11.2% year-on-year. After 40 years of development, the number of cases received in maritime trials has increased from 18 in 1984 to 34,000 in 2024, of which more than 80,000 cases involved foreign countries, involving more than 100 countries and regions. Furthermore, a large number of Chinese cases have been included in the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law’s “CLOUT System”, the United Nations Environment Programme database, and the World Intellectual Property Organization case collection. This has not only increased the international recognition of China’s foreign-related cases but also made China's relevant adjudication rules have a certain influence in the international community.
In addition to promoting China’s high-quality development, the Work Report disclosed that in 2024, the SPC also achieved certain results in maintaining national security and social stability, protecting people’s livelihood and welfare, and deepening judicial system reform. According to the work arrangements for 2025, the SPC’s key tasks this year involve deepening judicial services for national strategies, optimizing the rule of law business environment, strengthening judicial protection of people’s livelihood, and promoting judicial reform and team building.