The Supreme People's Court (SPC) released two judicial interpretations Thursday, among efforts to provide judicial guarantee for the creation of a stable, fair, transparent and predictable business environment.
One of the interpretations clarifies clauses governing how many times hearings can be postponed in civil and commercial cases and related restrictions, thus providing institutional guarantee for shortening the time of trials, said Liu Guixiang, a member of the SPC Judicial Committee.
It also appropriately expands the scope of application of the summary procedure in order to make related trials faster.
The other interpretation concerns the Enterprise Bankruptcy Law. It makes clarifications on the order in which an enterprise's debt will be cleared in case of a firm's bankruptcy, an individual creditors' right to know, the voting mechanism of creditor meetings as well as trustee powers to dispose of debtor property and related procedures.
"The people's courts should step up the handling of bankruptcy cases and deal with 'zombie enterprises' in accordance with laws, further letting bankruptcy play a positive role in improving the business environment and deepening supply-side structural reform," Liu said.
A total of 18,823 new cases of compulsory liquidation and bankruptcy were accepted by courts across the country in 2018, up 97.3 percent year on year. A total of 11,669 cases were concluded.
