(Chinese Version)

On June 26th, the 36th session of the Central Committee for Deepening Reform of the Communist Party of China (CPC) reviewed and approved the "Plan for the Establishment of the internet Court in Hangzhou", which means that China, or even the world's first internet court will be established in Hangzhou.

How does the first internet court work? What is its positioning? Up till now, there’s still no official answer. However, a short announcement from the official website of e-commerce online court of Zhejiang Court suggests that the scope of cases this new court will accept include: online shopping contract disputes, online shopping product liability disputes, internet service contract disputes, online financial loan contract disputes, micro-loan contract disputes and internet copyright disputes, etc.

As to the reason why the first internet court is launched in Hangzhou, "People's Court Daily" speculates that: on the one hand, as an economically-developed city of the internet industry, Hangzhou is home to a large number of well-known internet companies. Correspondingly, there might be a large number of internet-related disputes. In other words, there’s much need for judicial service in Hangzhou. On the other hand, Hangzhou already had a solid base for the trial and litigation of internet-related disputes. As early as August 13th, 2015, "E-commerce online court of Zhejiang Court" had already been established to move the entire process of litigation online.

This January, Hangzhou already made it clear that it was preparing to set up a separate internet court. At that time, Chen Guomeng, Chief Justice of the Zhejiang Higher People's Court, revealed that Zhejiang would actively promote the establishment of Hangzhou internet court.

"Based on the online e-commerce court of Hangzhou Court, Hangzhou Internet Court will specifically accept cases related to the internet, establish a professional judicial system to better hear and handle internet-related cases,” he explained.

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Translated by Levin Feng (Senior Translator at PAGE TO PAGE), working for TMTpost.