As a first step to imitating any China Litigation, our China lawyers will seek a property preservation order to freeze known assets of a defendant so they cannot be transferred or hidden. In past practice a Court will not accept such a property preservation application without proof of the specific property information of the other party, such as detailed bank account information. This situation has changed since the start of 2017.
According to a judicial interpretation issued by the People’s Supreme Court of China, a party applying for property preservation in litigation which for clear and definable reasons cannot provide specific information as to property to be preserved, but provides specific facts relating to such property; the court may duly issue a property preservation order.
If the facts provided by the applicant are sufficient, the court may perform inquiries as to the property to be preserved and take corresponding measures to seal up, distain, or freeze such property. The key question here is that even if exact details are not required, what kind of specific facts will be sufficient to the give the court the information it needs to clearly identify relevant properties and issue the preservation order.