The Chinese mainland and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) will further promote cross­-boundary judicial assistance, includ­ing bankruptcy cases, to help build a better business environment and serve the country’s high­quality development, an official of the Supreme People’s Court said in Bei­jing on Friday. 

We’ll continue working with Hong Kong authorities on some assistance arrangements regarding cross­-boundary bankruptcy, and explore the possibility of setting up a mutual judicial assistance mechanism on cross-boundary insolvency between the mainland and other jurisdictions.

Si Yanli, Deputy director of Research Office, Supreme People’s Court

“We’ll continue working with Hong Kong authorities on some assistance arrangements regarding cross­-boundary bankruptcy, and explore the possibility of setting up a mutual judicial assistance mechanism on cross-­boundary insolvency between the mainland and other jurisdictions,” said Si Yanli, deputy director of the Research Office of the Supreme People’s Court. 

To better develop the Guangdong­ Hong Kong-­Macao Greater Bay Area, “we have to find new measures to coordinate the legal and work systems, as well as to further cooperate on law application, the place selec­tion for arbitration and ascertain­ment of overseas laws,” she said. 

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Si hailed the past decades of suc­cessful collaboration on judicial assistance in civil and commercial matters between the mainland and the SAR, noting that the achieve­ments not only contributed to safe­ guarding the country’s sovereignty, national security and development interests, but also gave strong sup­port for Hong Kong to maintain long-­term stability and prosperity. 

Since Hong Kong’s return to the motherland in 1997, the country’s top court has signed eight agree­ments on judicial assistance with the HKSAR in the civil and commer­cial sectors, according to an SPC report issued on Friday. 

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Thanks to another arrangement to streamline the mutual serving of judicial documents in civil and com­mercial proceedings, the number of cases in which the two sides entrust­ed each other on the serving of judi­cial documents rose to 2,382 in 2020 from 359 in 1999, according to the SPC report. 

Si said although the mainland and Hong Kong have different jurisdictions and legal systems, the two sides have been open-­minded and could devote more effort to promoting judicial assistance under the “one country, two systems” principle. 

Zhao Xiangyang, an official with the Hong Kong Special Administra­ tive Region Basic Law Committee under the National People’s Con­ gress Standing Committee, said these cooperation arrangements uphold the principle of “one coun­ try, two systems”, and bring the mainland and Hong Kong closer together. 

In November, the mainland and the SAR jointly revised a 20­-year­-old legal assistance arrangement to con­solidate cooperation in resolving commercial disputes. It allows par­ties involved in commercial cases to simultaneously apply for arbitration awards enforcement in courts on the mainland and in Hong Kong. 

caoyin@chinadaily.com.cn