The Shanghai Arbitration Commission (SHAC) accepted a case involving a dispute over an industrial property purchase agreement, which required the retrieval of real estate registry information from the Minhang District Natural Resources Confirmation and Registration Service Center.
Traditionally, in arbitration cases requiring investigation and evidence collection, arbitration institutions would issue letters of assistance for investigation, and the parties or the arbitration institution would present the letters for investigation purposes.
However, as these letters of assistance were not enforceable, they often hindered the effectiveness of evidence collection.
In this case, SHAC submitted a request for assistance to the Minhang Primary People’s Court, Shanghai, which issued an investigation order to the arbitration institution. Subsequently, SHAC successfully obtained the real estate registration information with the given investigation order.
The reason why SHAC was able to obtain this investigation order is based on the Shanghai High People’s Court’s “Measures of Shanghai High People’s Court on Issuing Investigation Orders to Assist Arbitration in Investigation and Evidence Collection (For Trial Implementation)” (上海市高級人民法院關于開具調查令協助仲裁調查取證的辦法(試行)), introduced in November 2023, which allows Shanghai courts to issue investigation orders for arbitration institutions.
In recent years, local authorities in China have been making efforts to support arbitration, and this event is a notable example of such support.
Photo by MIGUEL BAIXAULI on Unsplash
Contributors: CJO Staff Contributors Team
