China uses online platform to facilitate maritime lawsuit filing

BEIJING - China has launched an online platform to facilitate the filing of maritime lawsuits, enabling plaintiffs to file their cases at any of the country's maritime courts or tribunals, instead of having to go to a specific one.

With the platform connecting the country's 10 maritime courts and 39 relevant tribunals, plaintiffs no longer need to go to the court with jurisdiction but are allowed to choose from any of them to bring a maritime action, according to the Supreme People's Court (SPC) Thursday.

The move is part of the SPC's efforts in advancing reform to improve services regarding cross-region litigation, it said.

As maritime disputes generally involve more foreign elements and jurisdiction areas, the need to enable cross-region lawsuit filing in this sector seems to be stronger, according to the SPC.

The SPC also pledged to further enhance the collaboration among different courts to improve the efficiency of maritime trials and ruling enforcement.