Experts raise doubts over legality of online auction

Industry insiders and legal experts on Thursday raised doubts over the legality of the country's first online auction for property seized by the courts.

The people's courts in Beilun and Yinzhou, two districts of Ningbo, Zhejiang province, this week put two seized vehicles up for auction on Taobao, a major online marketplace.

One was a BMW sedan, which sold for 330,900 yuan ($52,000) after 53 rounds of bidding, while the other was a Mitsubishi Outlander SUV that sold for 67,000 yuan.