China’s Guangzhou Court of the Internet offers online mediation in Portuguese

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

China’s Guangzhou Court of the Internet offers online mediation in Portuguese

2:41 CAT | 19 Apr 2022

File photo: .gzinternetcourt.gov.cn

An internet court in Guangzhou in southern China – one of three internet courts set up across that country – has established a dispute resolution platform offering online mediation services in Portuguese and other languages.

According to a report from the Chinese Supreme People’s Court, released on Monday, the Guangzhou Internet Court launched “the first multidisciplinary platform for online conflict resolution, in cooperation with Hong Kong and Macau.”

The platform, which offers fully online mediation sessions in Portuguese, English and Cantonese, has invited 22 mediators from the two Chinese special administrative regions.

The creation of the platform, in the capital of Guangdong, a province adjacent to Macau, was one of 15 initiatives awarded the third prize for judicial cooperation between mainland China and Hong Kong or Macau by China’s Supreme People’s Court.

The Guangzhou Internet Court was created in 2018 as a pilot in the field of the digital economy and artificial intelligence, deals with cases linked to e-commerce, works of art published online, ownership of domains and web pages.

In April 2021, Frederico Rato – a native of Portugal – became the first Macau-based lawyer to join the Guangzhou Arbitration Commission, in a city that is eager to focus on mediating commercial disputes with Portuguese-language countries. He told Lusa that the commission wanted to include legal experts who speak Portuguese and know the Portuguese-language markets.

The aim of the commission, he explained, is to be in a position to offer legal services of arbitration and mediation with which companies from Portuguese-language countries “also feel at ease to appeal.”

The commission believes that in the future there may be greater demand for out-of-court conflict resolution, as trade and investment linking China with Portuguese-language markets “are increasingly intense, particularly with Brazil, Angola and Mozambique,” Rato said.

Trade between China and Portuguese-language countries in the first 11 months of 2021 was up 38.4% on the same period in 2020, according to statistics from China’s Customs Service.

Source: Lusa