1st LD-Writethru: China to launch Shanghai financial court by end-August

BEIJING, April 27 (Xinhua) -- China's top legislature has approved the establishment of a specialized court in Shanghai to deal with finance-related cases.

The decision was adopted at the bimonthly session of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), which ended Friday.

"The court will be inaugurated by the end of August," said Lin Wenxue, official with the Supreme People's Court, at a press conference.

The court, at the intermediate people's court level, will be responsible for commercial cases such as those involving securities, bills, financial lending and administrative cases.

The leadership of the court, as well as the judges, will be appointed by the Standing Committee of Shanghai Municipal People's Congress.

The judges will be selected from outstanding members of the legal sphere, including lawyers and law experts.

Lawmakers on Thursday's panel agreed that setting up a special financial court could help prevent major financial risks, protect national economic security, and provide legal support for financial activities.

President of the Supreme People's Court Zhou Qiang said in a report to the NPC Standing Committee on Wednesday that the financial court would be bolster the international influence of China's financial justice, forestall financial risk, steer the financial sector to serve the real economy, and build Shanghai into an international financial center by 2020.

Last year, courts in Shanghai heard more than 179,000 finance-related cases in first instance. The number of such lawsuits in Shanghai grew by an average 51 percent year-on-year from 2013 to 2017, according to Zhou.

The creation of Shanghai financial court will enrich China's expanding family of special courts.

Besides the long-existing military courts, China set up intellectual property protection courts in three big cities in 2014 and an Internet court in the city of Hangzhou in 2017. Enditem