China to ban defaulters from bidding

People who deliberately default on court fines will be punished and banned from bidding and tendering, according to the Supreme People's Court (SPC) Thursday.

A total of nine central authorities, including the SPC, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Commerce, issued a circular restricting defaulters.

According to the circular, defaulters as individuals will be forbidden from any activities related to submitting bids. Bidding agencies with one or more defaulters are also banned from such business.

Enterprises inviting bids or bidding for any project must not hire or include any defaulter on the bid assessment committee. Existing defaulters should be dismissed in a timely manner before companies enter new bids, the circular said.

More than 60 percent of individuals or parties with liabilities deliberately abscond or refuse to fulfill court rulings, said Meng Xiang, chief of the Enforcement Bureau of the SPC.

Some even transfer assets overseas or refuse to fulfill their obligations with threats of violence, Meng said.

There were 3.08 million defaulters on the SPC's blacklist at the end of 2015. Endit