Wang Hongsong, Secretary-General of Beijing Arbitration Commission
1. Case accepting and handling
The number of cases handled by the BAC kept growing in 1999 reaching 326; 93 more cases or 40 percent more than compared to that in 1998. The amount went up with the greatest strides last year. Of these cases were 255 sales disputes, accounting for 78.22 percent of the total; 50 construction contractual disputes, 15.3 percent; 5 pool contractual disputes, 1.5 percent; 5 lease contractual disputes, 1.5 percent, 3 entrustment contractual disputes, 0.9 percent, 2 technological contractual disputes, 0.8 percent; and 4 other disputes, 1 percent. In all the cases, the number of arbitrations in which the parties definitely expressed that a dispute should be handled by the BAC within a statement written in the arbitration agreement accounted for 91 percent of the total, up by 5 percent compared to 1998. The BAC concluded 284 cases, or 87 percent of the accepted cases in 1999. The average duration for each case was 91 days from acceptance to conclusion and 83 days from constitution of the arbitral tribunal to conclusion.
In 1999, the parties of 26 cases applied to the Peoples Court for the setting aside of arbitral awards; the Peoples Court rejected 20 applications. From its establishment on September 28, 1995 to February 16, 2000, the BAC handled a total of 907 cases in and concluded 779 cases at a conclusion rate of 85.8 percent. Of the concluded arbitrations, the parties of 41 cases applied to the Peoples Court to revoke the arbitral awards, while the parties in 20 cases applied for a ruling against enforcement. Of these cases, 2 cases were dismissed, 2 cases re-arbitrated, and 3 cases non-enforced.
According to the statistics of the Beijing High Court, the parties in 60 cases applied to the local peoples court for forcible enforcement, of which, 2 cases were heard by the Court; the others have been successfully enforced.
So far, the BAC has been ranked first among the new established arbitration institutions around the country, in regards to the number of cases, concluded cases, quality and work efficiency.
2. Making great improvement in office conditions
With the development of arbitration, the old office and facilities of the BAC can no longer meet the needs of our work. Therefore, the BAC applied to the municipal government for the purchase of more office space. With the powerful support of the Beijing municipal government, we purchased the 7th floor of the Zhaoshang Building, at the intersection of Changan Street and the East Round, as office space, after thoroughly comparing other locations. We completed the renovation for the newly purchased office space and moved in. The new address can be convenient reached and is located on an advantageous geographic location within 1,981 square meters of construction. After renovation, there are a total of eight arbitration rooms, one reception hall, several reception rooms, and one arbitrator meeting room with accommodations for more than 100 persons. A sitting room for arbitrators, a library, archives room and offices for staff can also be found. The logical layout of the floor not only meets the present needs of the BAC but also leaves enough room for development in the future. The renovation was done elegantly and in good taste, and conforms to the environmental standards. We also made efforts to equip the rooms with an open intelligent system, thereby combining traditional and modern characteristics.
3. The Publication of Beijing Arbitration
In 1999, 74 articles about the Arbitration Law and the BAC were published in newspapers and magazines (a total of over 370 since the establishment of the BAC), and three programs about the Arbitration Law and the BAC were televised or broadcasted (a total of 35 since its establishment). The BAC has also held courses and training activities involved in the fields of construction and law with a total of over 3000 participants. In addition, we paid attention to strengthening publicity work through the Internet and updated our website in a timely fashion. Through cooperation with Beijing Telecom, we increased the speed of surfing our website resulting in more time browsing the pages and a great deal many more clicks of the mouse. At the same time, our website can be found in the big domestic search engines such as SOHU, YAHOO and CHANGQINGTENG.
4. Research about arbitration theory
In 1999, the BAC took part in the compiling of the Renewed Teaching Materials for Judicial Documents and the Renewed Examples about the Formats of Judicial Documents for the Justice Ministry and the Supreme Peoples Court, and in drafting some arbitral awards and cases analysis. In order to raise the level of standardization and transparency of the arbitrator engagement, the BAC stipulated the Standards for Arbitrator Engagement and Re-Engagement. In order to encourage arbitrators to study the arbitration procedures and thereby elevate the level of case handling, the Arbitration Office (hereinafter referred to as the Office) amended the Criterion for Case Handling of Arbitrators of the Beijing Arbitration Commission (drafted) and the Criterion of Rendering an Arbitration Award of the Beijing Arbitration Commission (drafted). These amendments took account of many subject matters, and referred to new theories and experiences acquired and accumulated during the period of reform on the style of judgment and added much new content. In 2000 the Office plans to organize arbitrators and relevant branches to discuss and further perfect these two Criterions in order to make them practically feasible.
5. Further enhancing the level of office automation
The Office entrusted a computer company to research and develop the third edition of the arbitration management software. This software contained more content, functioned better and consisted of new features on time statistics of the arbitration cases, announcement of case handling, case examining and approving, and case statistics. As a result, it not only made case record and management more convenient but also established a good basis for no-paper operation in the future. We also specially installed computer-inquiring system in the reception hall for the parties and their representatives to conveniently access information on arbitration procedures and detailed information on the arbitrators. The parties and their representatives may use the touch-screen interface to quickly familiarize themselves with the professional backgrounds of arbitrators, case handling procedures, arbitration rules and other relevant data about the Arbitration Information of the BAC.
In 2000, the BAC will continue to (1) strengthen the training of arbitrators, (2) publicize arbitration, (3) intensify work exchanges with relevant departments and (4) try to make more contributions in arbitration generally.