The right to use a piece of land seized by a court in Yancheng city, East China's Jiangsu province was sold online for more than 2.6 billion yuan ($390 million), an online auction record for seized property in China.

The land, located at Yanfang Road in Yancheng city, was sold on Aug 10 through an online judicial auction platform set up by the Yancheng Intermediate People's Court with a premium rate of 57.96 percent.

Only two bidders participated in the online sale, but competition was so furious that the two applicants cast a total of 900 bids before one of the bidders, with an auction number of 16261, won the duel by bidding a whopping 2.63 billion yuan.

The online judicial sale attracted 34,622 clicks as people were amazed by the keen competition between the two bidders, whose identities remain unknown.

The method of online judicial auction has been widely adopted in China since 2016 to improve the openness and transparency of enforcement.

Over 1,600 courts from 28 province-level regions in China have adopted the e-auction method, according to a white paper on judicial reform of Chinese courts released in Feb 2017.

Over 320,000 online auctions have been conducted, realizing proceeds of more than 190 billion yuan, with 89 percent of items put up for bid successfully sold at an average premium rate of 42 percent, according to the white paper.