The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (hereinafter as NPCSC) of the Peo-ple's Republic of China (hereinafter as PRC) amended the Civil Procedure Law of the PRC (here-inafter as CPL) on 1 September 2023, which will come into effect on 1 January 2024. The amendment particularly involves special provisions on foreign-related civil procedure, aiming to improve the efficiency of foreign-related civil procedure. This will streamline the process of initiat-ing cross-border litigation in Chinese courts, particularly when filing lawsuits against entities out-side of China. The most notable changes are briefly listed below (original legal text click here):

Note: The following article is the third article of the series discussion regarding “Listing and Financing of FIEs in China” Since 2019, China's multi-tiered capital market system has been continuously improved and the reform of registration-based initial public offering system (“Registration-based System”) has been gradually advanced. Specifically, in 2019, the Science and Technology Innovation Board (“STAR Market”) was established, and the registration-based system was piloted. In 2020, re-forms were initiated and registration-based system was piloted for the ChiNext board. In 2021, the Beijing Stock Exchange (“BSE”) was officially launched and adopted registration-based system as well. On February 17, 2023, the China Securities Regulatory Commission (“CSRC”) issued and implemented comprehensive rules for the registration-based system for stock issuance, fur-ther promoting the reform of registration-based system on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Main Boards, thus completing the comprehensive construction of the A-share registration-based sys-tem. Under the comprehensive registration-based system, significant changes have occurred in the review and registration mechanisms. The responsibilities of the securities issuance regulatory agency involve conducting formal reviews of the comprehensiveness, accuracy, authenticity and timeliness of the application documents, without conducting substantive judgment on the issuer's investment value. The stock exchanges bear the primary responsibility for reviewing and approv-ing the listing of issuers, conducting comprehensive reviews on whether the issuers meet the is-suance conditions, listing conditions and information disclosure requirements. The CSRC simulta-neously monitors whether the issuers comply with national industrial policies and sector positioning, provides timely guidance on major issues encountered during the exchange's review process and registers such issuer based on the exchange's review opinions in accordance with the law. In ad-dition, the Main Board, STAR Market, and ChiNext have further optimized their requirements on listing thresholds. For example, the Main Board establishes multiple sets of financial standards for Chinese domestic enterprises to choose from, no longer requires (i) continuous profitability for three years, and (ii) the absence of uncovered deficit in the latest year-end for initial public offer-ings, and has also lifted the restrictions on the ratio of in-tangible assets to net assets.

On 8 March 2023, China acceded to the Convention Abolishing the Requirement of Legalization for Foreign Public Documents (hereinafter referred to as the “Convention”). The Convention will come into effect in China on 7 November 2023.