In trying a case about objection to enforcement in which a Singaporean citizen is involved, Haikou Maritime Court has recently accepted the validity of general authorisation made by the foreign litigant. The case is thus efficiently tried and concluded, and the rights and interests of the foreign litigant have been promptly protected.

In judicial practices, a litigant normally grants a power of attorney to its lawyer for each single case, and multiple powers of attorney are required for multiple proceedings. As prescribed by China’s civil procedure law, when a foreign litigant is engaged in civil proceedings in a Chinese court, any power of attorney executed by the foreign litigant outside Chinese territory has to be first notarized by a notary public in the country where the litigant is located and then legalized by the Chinese embassy or consulate in that country. This process takes several weeks to several months and puts great obstacles in the way of proceedings. For foreign litigants going through multiple proceedings in China, this means for each single proceedings the power of attorney they issue outside Chinese territory has to go through cumbersome notarization and legalization formalities. This puts foreign litigants to great inconvenience and slows down the trial of cases. To solve this issues, Haikou Maritime Court has for the first time in foreign-related litigation introduced the practice of “general authorisation by foreign litigants”. This means that foreign litigants may generally authorise their lawyers or other agents practising in Chinese territory to act for them in all of their proceedings heard in Chinese courts during a certain period. For this purpose, they only need to go through notarization and legalization formalities once. Their agents can act for them in proceedings within the term of the authorisation without any other notarization and legalization formalities, which significantly saves time and costs.

In trying a case about objection to enforcement in which a Singaporean citizen was involved (as defendant), Haikou Maritime Court adopted the above practice and accepted the validity of the general authorisation made by the foreign litigant. At the court hearing of the case, the plaintiff objected to the power of attorney issued by the Singaporean citizen on the grounds that it was not for a specified purpose, in an attempt to deny the qualification of the Singaporean citizen’s agent ad litem and obstruct the hearing. Through examination, the collegial bench found that the power of attorney was general authorisation which had been notarized and legalized and was within the term of validity. The bench thus ruled to accept its validity, and the court hearing went on. The hearing was conducted live and a judgment was passed in court. The case was concluded merely 55 days following its entertainment.