China's maritime courts are striving to launch a cross-regional case-filing service, following the practice of courts in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and the Yangtze River Delta.

The aim of the service is to solve difficulties in the maritime cases filing. The cross-regional jurisdictions of Chinese maritime courts often require parties to file their cases at courts with different jurisdictions.

In the first quarter, with its self-developed system, the Guangzhou Maritime Court in Southeast China’s Guangdong province realized cross-regional case-filing and transfer of evidence materials between its headquarters and four affiliated local tribunals.

By launching its digitalized case-handling system in mid May, the Dalian Maritime Court in Northeast China’s Liaoning province also achieved cross-regional case-filing between its headquarters and all its affiliated local tribunals and circuit courts within three provinces in Northeast China. So far, ten maritime cases have been filed through the system.

Maritime courts across the country and their appeal courts are currently stepping up efforts to link their own systems to the online cross-regional case-filing platform developed by telecom giant China Mobile.

Nationwide cross-regional maritime case-filing is expected to be achieved before Aug 30.