Seven legal professionals from Hong Kong and Macao, along with six veterans from the legal and business communities on the mainland were appointed in Qianhai on Tuesday by the Shenzhen Municipal Government as members of the third council of the Shenzhen Court of International Arbitration (SCIA).
At the start of its new five-year term, the council, which exercises the power of decision-making and supervision, has taken in influential Hong Kong and Macao legal practitioners, including Anthony Neoh, a senior counsel in Hong Kong and former chairman of the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission; Elsie Leung, former deputy director of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) Basic Law Committee of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (2006-2018) and the first Secretary for Justice of the Hong Kong SAR Government; and Liu Chunhua, head of the Legal Department of the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in the Hong Kong SAR.
Shen Sibao, the council’s newly appointed chairman and chairman of the China International Economic and Trade Law Association, said that SCIA has made impressive achievements over the past decade. “Ten years ago, the total amount in disputes in arbitration cases handled by SCIA was around 5 billion yuan (US$720.65 million). In 2022, the number has risen to 127.2 billion yuan, ranking first in Asia and third worldwide, which is a big leap for us,” Shen said. “We’ll leverage our advantages with many international resources to set models for the development of arbitration centers on the mainland.”
To Neoh, the key to building a first-tier business environment in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) is to realize rule convergence. He said that to boost the confidence among investors and businessmen conducting cross-border business, the council needs to provide services that are guided by mutually recognized rules. “SCIA has been taking the lead by adopting internationally recognized rules and make Hong Kong the default seat for final arbitration, for instance.”
Liu Xiaochun, head of SCIA and a member of the council, said that by combining Shenzhen and Hong Kong’s strengths, China will and “must” be the world’s best arbitration seat for civil law.
“The index has proven that Shenzhen is becoming one of the best places to solve disputes. Since we have over 1,500 arbitrators from 114 countries and regions around the world, and this year, we started to invite Macao professionals to join us. With the support from the South China International Arbitration Center (HK), SCIA will help more Chinese enterprises to go global and facilitate more foreign companies to grow in China. Our aim is always to help create a transparent, fair and predicable business environment,” Liu said.
Ten reform measures and achievements made by SCIA in the past decade were released at Tuesday’s inauguration ceremony.