Zhejiang High People's Court Releases Judicial Review Report on Commercial Arbitration: Low Setting-Aside Rate and High Interim Measures Rate Help Optimize Business Environment

On June 16, the High People's Court of Zhejiang Province released the Judicial Review Report on Commercial Arbitration by Zhejiang Courts (2024-2025) and typical cases. With the newly revised Arbitration Law officially coming into effect on March 1, 2026, Zhejiang courts have adhered to the concept of "equal emphasis on support and supervision." Over the past two years, they accepted a total of 1,586 judicial review cases of various commercial arbitrations and concluded 1,623 cases. Both the numbers of accepted and concluded cases increased significantly compared to 2023, effectively promoting the construction of an "arbitration-friendly" judicial environment.

The report shows that the judicial review of Zhejiang courts adheres to the principle of prudence, presenting the characteristics of a low rate of setting aside awards and a high rate of interim measures. In the past two years, the rate of setting aside awards in cases applying for the revocation of arbitral awards dropped to 1.51%, while among the 3,747 concluded cases involving interim measures in arbitration, the support rate for interim measures reached as high as 89.70%. At the same time, the courts strictly checked the review of the validity of arbitration agreements, concluding 418 cases concerning the confirmation of validity, and legally determining them as invalid for cases due to unclear agreements or failure to reach a consensus, thereby strictly maintaining the consensual basis of arbitration.

In terms of foreign-related and institutional innovation, Zhejiang courts actively escorted cross-border commercial activities. Over the past two years, all concluded cases applying for the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards were supported except for those withdrawn, and the support rate for awards from the Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan regions even reached 100%. At the same time, the province actively promoted linkage mechanisms. For instance, the Hangzhou International Commercial Court issued the province's first arbitration investigation order, and the Ningbo Intermediate People's Court deepened full-process linkage, effectively solving the difficulties in evidence collection and interim measures in arbitration.

Aiming at new challenges emerging in the digital economy and foreign trade sectors, such as standard terms of e-commerce platforms and fraudulent arbitration, the ten typical cases released this time focus on frontier practices and clarify the adjudication standards for similar cases. The Zhejiang High People's Court stated that in the next step, it will take the implementation of the new Arbitration Law as a grasp to continuously improve the specialization and internationalization level of judicial review, providing more powerful judicial protection for continuously optimizing a market-oriented, law-based, and internationalized first-class business environment.

ICC Arbitration Rules (2026 Edition) Officially Formed, Helping Chinese Enterprises Defend Rights in Cross-Border Commercial Disputes

On June 1, the International Chamber of Commerce's ICC Arbitration Rules (2026 Edition) formally came into force. The new rules made important adjustments around accelerating procedures, digitalization, and upgrading transparency, deeply reshaping the pattern for Chinese enterprises in responding to cross-border commercial disputes, which brings convenience for rights protection while also putting forward higher requirements for enterprises' refined compliance.

The most core transformation of the new rules lies in streamlining processes and reducing the cost of rights protection. The rules abolished the mandatory Terms of Reference, raised the threshold for applying regular expedited procedures to 4 million USD, and newly added an ultra-expedited procedure, significantly shortening the dispute resolution cycle. Meanwhile, the new rules set full-process digitalization as the default mode, allowing remote hearings and online examination of evidence, which highly matches the current status of China's digital foreign trade and eliminates the travel and time costs of cross-border hearings. However, because the simplified procedures shorten the window period for producing evidence, and the verification of electronic evidence is tightened, this forces enterprises to establish a standardized electronic data storage mechanism.

In terms of protecting rights and preventing risks, the new rules likewise released major benefits. The rules allow the issuance of ex parte temporary relief or interim measures orders when the opposing party is not present, and introduce an early determination system, helping outbound enterprises quickly lock foreign assets and block the expansion of cargo damage at the initial stage of disputes. In addition, the new rules significantly tightened arbitrators' disclosure obligations regarding conflicts of interest, which helps reduce the procedural disadvantage of Chinese parties in international arbitrations, but also requires enterprises to standardize arbitration clauses when drafting foreign-related contracts to avoid jurisdiction disputes.

Overall, the ICC 2026 Arbitration Rules are generally beneficial to Chinese outbound enterprises. Facing the iteration of rules, small and medium-sized foreign trade enterprises should focus on improving electronic document archiving and updating standard clauses, while large and medium-sized enterprises need to build foreign-related legal emergency teams and formulate overseas interim measures plans, so as to effectively protect their legitimate rights and interests in the complex global economic and trade environment by actively adapting to the new rules.

Hong Kong Court Ruling Strongly Supports Arbitration Early Determination Procedure

Refusing to Set Aside Award to Demonstrate Judicial Support

Recently, the Court of First Instance of the High Court of Hong Kong made a judgment on the case A v B1 and B2 [2026] HKCFI 2444, dismissing all applications to set aside the Early Determination Procedure (EDP) award of the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre (HKIAC). As one of the very few cases where a Hong Kong court reviewed an arbitration early determination procedure, this judgment demonstrates the strong support of the Hong Kong judicial level for this procedural mechanism that balances efficiency and fairness.

The dispute in this case originated from an M&A transaction agreement, where the plaintiff initiated an HKIAC arbitration over a dispute regarding a large amount of retained funds. The defendant then applied to initiate an "Early Determination Procedure," similar to a court's summary judgment, based on Article 43 of the institutional arbitration rules to dismiss the plaintiff's claims. After granting the application, the arbitral tribunal rendered a partial award, dismissing all of the plaintiff's claims and ruling that the plaintiff should bear the costs. Dissatisfied, the plaintiff applied to the Hong Kong court to set aside the relevant award on the grounds that the defendant failed to clearly specify the questions of law or fact, that the plaintiff itself was deprived of a fair opportunity to present its case, that the arbitral tribunal exceeded its jurisdiction, and that the award violated public policy.

The Hong Kong court reviewed and dismissed the aforementioned objections one by one. The court clearly pointed out that the relevant rules did not set a specific standard for the precision of specifying questions of law or fact, which falls within the scope of case management matters under the arbitral tribunal's discretion; moreover, the plaintiff fully participated throughout the process, and minor technical violations were insufficient to constitute grounds for setting aside the award. At the same time, the plaintiff had obtained full opportunities through multiple rounds of statements, so there was no due process defect; the arbitral tribunal's determination did not exceed the scope of submission, and it had the right to adopt a summary approach for cost assessment.

This judgment provides an important guide for international commercial arbitration practice. The court demonstrated through its judgment that only serious and flagrant procedural defects are sufficient to shake an early determination procedure award. This attitude allows practitioners to use this procedure with greater confidence to quickly resolve disputes in the future, and even disputes closely related to facts are not naturally excluded, thereby further consolidating Hong Kong's position as an efficient international arbitration hub.

Dalian Intermediate People's Court:

The imprint is not from the same seal, making it impossible to determine that an intention to resolve disputes through arbitration was ever expressed; the arbitration clause is not established

Legal Basis:

"Arbitration Law of the People’s Republic of China"

Article 4

Where the parties adopt arbitration to resolve disputes, they shall do so on a voluntary basis and reach an arbitration agreement. In the absence of an arbitration agreement, if one party applies for arbitration, the arbitration commission shall not accept it.

Article 19, Paragraph 1

An arbitration agreement exists independently. The amendment, rescission, termination, or invalidity of a contract shall not affect the validity of the arbitration agreement.

Case Description：

On November 18, 2011, a certain office entered into a project cooperation agreement with Zhongmou Company, explicitly agreeing that if any dispute arises between the parties regarding the validity, interpretation, or performance of the agreement, and if negotiation fails, either party has the right to bring a lawsuit in the court where Party A is located. Thereafter, on November 29, a "Supplementary Agreement" was generated in form, which changed the dispute resolution method to applying for arbitration to a certain arbitration commission. However, the signature block only bore the seals of both parties, without the signatures of the legal representatives or authorized representatives of either party.

Years later, on January 27, 2025, Zhongmou Company applied for arbitration to the Chifeng Arbitration Commission based on the arbitration clause in the "Supplementary Agreement". On February 5 of the same year, the office received the notice of arbitration and other documents served by the arbitration commission. After identifying that the official seal on the supplementary agreement did not match the seal impression used by the office at that time and was suspected of serious forgery, the office urgently reported to the public security organ on February 7, and the report was accepted.

On February 28, 2025, the public security sub-bureau believed that there were facts of a crime regarding the forgery of the official seal and decided to open a case for investigation. Shortly after, on March 3, the public security sub-bureau issued a notice of appraisal opinion, confirming through professional appraisal that the seal impression at the signature block of the "Supplementary Agreement" was not from the same seal as the sample impression, formally confirming that the official seal was indeed forged.

On May 21, 2025, Zhongmou Company applied to the Chifeng Arbitration Commission to withdraw its arbitration application, which was granted. Subsequently, the office filed a lawsuit in Dalian Intermediate People's Court (hereinafter referred to as the “Court”), requesting to confirm that the arbitration clause in the "Supplementary Agreement" was invalid, while Zhongmou Company throughout the court trial failed to appear in court for questioning and did not submit any written opinions.

Court's View:

The Court held upon trial that this case is a case applying for confirmation of the validity of arbitration. According to the provisions of China's Arbitration Law, the parties' adoption of arbitration to resolve disputes should follow the basic principle of mutual willingness, and a true arbitration agreement must be reached by both parties. Although an arbitration agreement is independent, its establishment is still predicated on the existence of a true arbitration intent between both parties.

In this case, the office explicitly denied having entered into the "Supplementary Agreement" with Zhongmou Company. Combined with the criminal case filing materials issued by the public security organ and professional scientific appraisal opinions, the official seal of the office affixed to the involved supplementary agreement has been proven to be forged. Under such circumstances, Zhongmou Company neither appeared in court to explain the situation nor provided any evidence to prove the actual process of signing or the actual performance of the agreement. Therefore, it is impossible to determine that the office had made a true expression of intent agreeing to resolve disputes through arbitration.

Based on the aforementioned facts and legal grounds, the Court ultimately determined that the arbitration clause in the "Supplementary Agreement" was not established, supported the office's application in accordance with the law, and ruled to confirm that the arbitration clause was not established.

Singapore International Commercial Court Clarifies Standards for Determining Offshore Cases: Place of Performance Being Inbound Becomes Core for Deciding Substantial Connection

Case Description：

In March 2020, 2,500 Bitcoins and other virtual currencies in the defendant's exclusive wallet were transferred out, but the platform's system ledger failed to record the withdrawal.

By July 2024, the platform's customer manager mistakenly believed that the defendant's wallet still held sufficient assets and inadvertently transferred an equal amount of Bitcoins and other virtual currencies into the defendant's other platform wallets. Subsequently, the defendant transferred 800 of the Bitcoins to an offline wallet as the involved outbound assets, while the remaining 1,700 Bitcoins and other virtual currencies continued to remain in the platform wallet.

In January 2025, after discovering the bookkeeping error, the platform quickly froze the defendant's wallet and recovered the retained assets, but the negotiations between the two parties regarding the return of the outbound assets failed to reach an agreement.

In November 2025, the plaintiff formally filed a lawsuit, and the defendant subsequently filed a counterclaim. Later, with the consent of both parties, the case was transferred to the Singapore International Commercial Court for trial. During this period, the court issued a property injunction to freeze the defendant's relevant crypto assets.

On June 19, 2026, the Singapore International Commercial Court rendered a judgment on this dispute involving a US cryptocurrency platform and a UAE user, conducting a detailed analysis and determination on whether the involved dispute constitutes an offshore case.

Court's View：

The Singapore International Commercial Court pointed out that an offshore case refers to a lawsuit that has no substantial connection with Singapore. Under normal circumstances, a case may be determined as an offshore case only if the dispute does not apply Singapore law, or the only connecting factor is that the parties agree on the governing law and submit to jurisdiction, and the party claiming that the case is an offshore case bears the full burden of proof. When evaluating, the court should comprehensively consider the facts of the entire case as a whole, and cannot sever the main claim from the counterclaim, while the place of performance of the contract is the core consideration for judging whether a substantial connection exists.

Regarding the specific circumstances of this case, the court believed that the platform user agreement is the underlying foundation for all the disputes, rather than an ancillary document. The parties' claims regarding confirmation of rights, torts, and unjust enrichment are all based on the terms of the agreement, and the defendant's counterclaim as well as the plaintiff's claim for breach of contract also fully rely on the provisions regarding custody and ownership in the agreement. Therefore, the contract dispute is the core of this case.

At the same time, the involved agreement explicitly states that platform services are provided from Singapore, and all the alleged breaches of contract by the plaintiff, such as bookkeeping errors, freezing wallets, and transferring assets, all belong to contractual obligations performed in Singapore. This completely complies with the adjudication standard in precedents that the place of performance being in Singapore constitutes a substantial connection.

In addition, the court emphasized that the counterclaim should be integrated into the case for comprehensive evaluation as a whole. The amount in dispute in the counterclaim in this case is higher and constitutes the main dispute. Since the counterclaim is fully directed at the contractual breach of the Singapore contracting entity, and the fundamental disagreement between the parties over asset ownership must also be determined based on the platform user agreement, this further significantly strengthens the connection between this case and Singapore.

In summary, the court determined that this case has a substantial connection with Singapore and therefore does not constitute an offshore case, and does not apply special convenience policies such as representation by foreign lawyers in court and being more likely to obtain case confidentiality orders.