The Supreme People's Court ("SPC") recently issued the Rules of the People's Courts for Online Litigation (the "Rules"), which will come into force on August 1, 2021.

The Rules incorporate 39 articles, mainly touching upon the following contents:

(1) To establish the fundamental principles for online litigation and clarify the scope and conditions of application.

(2) To clarify the effectiveness of electronic materials as well as review rules, laying a solid foundation for the online review mechanism.

(3) To clarify the scope of validity of blockchain-based evidence and improve the standards for reviewing the authenticity of evidence.

(4) To clarify the applicable scope of online court trials and how to proceed with such trials, standardizing the order of online court trials.

(5) To clarify the non-synchronized trial mechanism and set reasonable limits on the scope and conditions of application.

(6) To clarify the applicable rules for E-service and refine the criteria for determining the effectiveness of service.

In addition, the Rules also set out systematic regulations on online mediation, identity authentication, online case filings, online responses to actions, electronic transcripts, electronic case files, online enforcement, online data protection, and online trial of criminal cases.

(Source: Supreme People’s Court)