Shanghai Maritime Court releases the White Paper 2016 on the occasion of “25 June, the Day of Seafarer”

On 22^nd June, on the occasion of the Day of Seafarer, Shanghai Maritime Court held a press conference to release the report on maritime trials in 2016 in both Chinese and English, specially focusing on the trial and enforcement cases for protection of seamen’s rights during 2014-2016. It was the 7^th report since Shanghai Maritime Court released the country’s first maritime court report in 2010.

The bilingual report, sticking to the feature of “normalization in release, serialization in themes, elaboration in content”, centering on the hot shipping issues concerning to people’s livelihood, paid attention to the seamen’s career development and rights protection, comprehensively reflected the trial and enforcement situations in protecting the seamen’s rights and interests as well as the implement status of mechanisms for safeguard the people’s livelihood, and provided effective judicial experience for regulating and guiding the healthy development of the seamen’s employment and the shipping industry.

Trial and Enforcement Work Ran Smoothly

The Report shows that, Shanghai Maritime Court received 5,054 cases throughout the year, and settled 5,101 cases, representing a year-on-year growth of 7.49% and 8.28% respectively, with a total value of subject matters thereof of RMB 4.59 billion. There were 983 cases involving foreign parties or parties from Hong Kong/Macao/Taiwan, covering 36 countries and regions all over the world. Cases of disputes over contracts for carriage of goods and freight forwarding by sea or on sea-linked waters accounted 69.79% of the cases of first instance.

Shanghai Maritime Court settled a number of significant cases. For example, the Court exercised judicial jurisdiction by law over the series of cases of marine accidents taking place near the waters of Huangyan Island in the South China Sea, and exhibited China’s judicial sovereignty to the international community thereof. 1 case was elected into cases reported by the Gazette of the Supreme People’s Court and the “National Top 10 Typical Maritime Cases in 2016” and the “Top 10 Typical Cases of Shanghai Courts in 2016”.2 cases were carried on the French magazine Maritime Law, and had received high praise from the French colleagues.

The Report also introduced the progress of Shanghai Maritime Court in implementing in depth the quality case strategy, participating actively in the comprehensive administration of the shipping industry, deepening professional trial mechanism, establishing the “Four-Fast” green channel of “fast registration, fast preservation, fast trial, fast enforcement”, improving the online ship auction mechanism and expanding the application of network information technology.

In light of the new trends and issues in maritime cases, the Report indicated that cases of disputes over loan contracts related to vessel operation were increasing, it became difficult to identify and assign the responsibility of the De-Facto carrier since the Rules for Domestic Waterway Transport was abolished, a large number of textile export transport contract cases occurred in emerging markets, disputes caused by cruise tours had appeared in litigation and a significant number of cases of claims by cleaning and pollution control enterprises for operating costs for removing oil spills caused by ship accidents were received.

Focus on the Hot Shipping Issues Concerning to People’s Livelihood

Except for the basic trial and enforcement situation of Shanghai Maritime Court in 2016, the Report posted several typical cases involving the protection of seamen’s rights and interests after summarized and analyzed the cases received by the Court during 2014-2016.through the trial and enforcement work, the Court had contributed to creating a good environment for the rule of law for better protection of the seamen and sound development of the shipping industry.

The Report indicated that, Shanghai Maritime Court had received more than 2,000 cases involving seamen, including 790 cases of disputes over labor contracts for ship crew. Due to the impact of market conditions and business performance, the number of cases experienced a big fluctuation. Many cases were filed in the form of collective litigation and the subject matter values of most cases were less than RMB 60,000. Among the 804 labor contract cases settled during 2014-2016, 49.62% of the cases were settled through judgment and 55.47% were settled within 1 month. Besides, labor contract cases involving foreign parties, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan increased significantly.

The Report released several typical cases for protection of the seamen’s rights and interests, respectively involved with seamen’s disability caused by injury, severe casualties of a marine accident, personal injury of dispatched seamen, green channel for judicial protection and seaman-related judgment enforcement。By forming a mature and unified judicial criteria, the Court was attempting to regulate and guide the market subject behaviors, optimize the legal environment for seamen to perform duties, and therefore promote the orderly development of shipping industry.

Through years of practice and exploration in protecting the seamen’s rights and interests, Shanghai Maritime Court had formed a set of relatively mature mechanisms and experience. The Report specially introduced the work mechanisms and main methods. For example, the Court set up the “Four Fast” green channel to shorten the time for realizing the seamen’s rights, and actively advance online ship auction for better and raster realization of the seamen’s claims.

Zhao Hong, President of Shanghai Maritime Court, said:” With the deepening implementation of the state strategies such as “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR) and maritime power, the healthy development of shipping industry has revealed its importance day by day, and Shanghai maritime trial is assuming greater responsibilities in safeguarding national maritime rights and interests, and in serving and guaranteeing the implementation of the national major strategies as well as the construction of Shanghai International Shipping Center, and Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone. Seamen are one of the key elements of modern shipping industry. We shall not only protect the healthy operation of shipping economy, but also protect the seamen’s legal rights and interests timely by law, by providing them better judicial safeguard and right remedy, thus contribute our due efforts in creating a sound legal shipping environment.