Grand Justice Li Guoguang said courts will focus on company fraud such as falsified or inflated capital reports and made-up bankruptcies to evade repayment of debt.

Special attention will be paid to fraud involving loans, fund-raising, commercial instruments, letters of credit, credit cards, stock and insurance contracts, Li said.

Li, who is also vice-president of China's Supreme People's Court, added courts will harshly punish money laundering, money forgery and trafficking, illegal raising of public funds, evasion and illegal trade of foreign exchange in the years to come.

Financial cases have constituted an important part of trials in China in the past three years following a national conference in 1997 which targeted financial risks and sought to correct the chaos in the financial market in China against the backdrop of the Asian financial crisis.

Statistics from the Supreme People's Court reveal that between 1998 and 2001, courts in China handled more than 2.07 million financial disputes, involving some 1 trillion yuan (US$120 billion). More than 1.49 million verdicts on financial cases were enforced during the same period.

Efforts have been made to check the evasion of debts to banks, illegal fund-raising and establishment of financial institutions as well as violations in the stock market.

The Supreme People's Court has also issued a total of 29 judicial interpretations governing the trials and enforcement of verdicts of such cases in the past three years.

Li noted that after reaching its peak in 1999, the number of financial cases in China has been declining, indicating a more orderly financial market in the country.

But the courts are not about to loosen their tight reins on such cases. Earlier this year, Vice-President of the Supreme People's Court Zhu Mingshan vowed that financial fraud, together with the production and sale of fake and shoddy products, would be a priority of Chinese courts this year.

Judges will also consider as a matter of urgency the infringement of intellectual property rights, smuggling, fraud in export rebates and value-added taxes, and major accidents due to negligence in production.

Li said Chinese courts will continue to enhance research into disputes on securities, e-banking, high-tech crimes in finance and guarantee just and efficient trials and enforcement of financial cases.

(China Daily July 15, 2002)