Litigation rises rapidly in Chinese legal market

Litigation levels are rising rapidly in China. This is due to legal reforms that have facilitated litigation, but there is more work to be done.
In 2008 alone, Chinese courts handled 10.71 million cases, around 11% more than in 2007.
In the civil sector, the fastest growth is occurring in labour disputes, followed by cases involving health care, housing and consumer rights.
Due to the economic downturn and the adoption of the new Labour Contract Law, labour dispute cases exceeded 286,000 last year, which is almost double the 2007 figure.
Financial disputes, which account for around 10% of the total cases concluded, have seen a 15% increase, exceeding 1 million.
Intellectual property right infringement cases are also in the top five, with a one-third increase. Between 2003 and 2008, China launched many special campaigns to rectify and standardise intellectual property protection. Wang Shengjun also has stated that Chinese courts will severely penalise IPR infringement.
There have been 3.17 million civil cases handled through mediation, accounting for about 60% of total civil cases. International firms are seeing more potential to expand into alternative dispute resolution work, but domestic firms are also looking to get a piece of the action.
Most Chinese prefer to avoid court litigation, not only because of the complexity and expense that can develop but also because of cultural reasons. But when it comes to unavoidable situations, there is no big difference between litigation and arbitration for clients. Now, we can see that the quality of Chinese judges has improved greatly.