What is law ascertainment of BCI & BIMC?

Q: Is BCI & BIMC a legal search company? Isn’t it enough to use search engines to ascertain foreign law?

A: Foreign law ascertainment has two layers: search the law and explain it. It is more important to understand the law than to simply find it. Among all the engagements we have received, it is very rare that BCI & BIMC is merely searching the text of legal provisions. Most of the engagements require a legal opinion/report or consultancy from a legal expert on how the foreign law should be interpreted.

BCI & BIMC endows foreign law ascertainment with power of technology. It builds legal database to provide legal knowledge of various jurisdictions, and legal experts pool which is the brainpower in the ascertainment of foreign law.

Q: Are BCI & BIMC’s legal experts reliable?

A: As an international legal service platform, BCI & BIMC gathers a vast pool of legal experts. Till now, BCI & BIMC has formed strategic partnership with 161 legal institutions around the world. More than 2,300 individual experts have joined the legal experts pool, including foreign lawyers as the main part, as well as authoritative and representative scholars and researchers within and outside China. Legal experts are classified by their jurisdiction, areas of practice and years of practice etc. to facilitate accurate and efficient matching of experts in response to clients’ demands.

Q: Is the ascertainment of foreign law an efficient process?

A: BCI & BIMC fully understands the requirement for efficiency in the ascertainment of foreign law and has therefore taken the following measures to ensure efficiency:

(1)Establish legal database and legal experts pool and endow these databases with IT tools;

(2)Set out strict process;

(3)Formulate standard documents;

(4)Access to online application for foreign law ascertainment.

Q: How does BCI & BIMC ensure its neutrality in the ascertainment for dispute resolution?

A: (1) From the very beginning, BCI & BIMC is designed to be established as a third-party institution which functions independently and neutrally.

(2) Management of ascertainment process requires the applicant to reveal the purpose(s) of ascertainment of law. If it is related to dispute resolution, BCI & BIMC will proceed to confirm whether the request of the applicant is consistent with that of the court.

(3) As a standard procedure, each legal expert is required to run a conflict of interest check before engaging in any ascertainment work for any case in order to guarantee no conflict of interest.

(4) In complicated cases, BCI & BIMC legal experts can appear in court to be inquired by both parties when the court requires, which helps the court evaluate the professionalism and neutrality of the legal expert and reliability of the ascertained contents. BCI & BIMC legal experts have appeared in court for cases before Shenzhen Qianhai Cooperation Zone People’s Court and Guangzhou Intermediate People’s Court. This practice has presented positive effect.

Q: Is it normally for the court or the parties to a case to entrust BCI & BIMC to ascertain foreign law for litigation?

A: Article 10(1) of the Law of the People's Republic of China on the Law Applicable to Foreign-Related Civil Relationships prescribes:

“Foreign laws applicable to foreign-related civil relations shall be ascertained by the people's court, arbitral authority or administrative agency. If any party chooses the applicable foreign laws, he shall provide the laws of the jurisdiction in question.”

In practice, both the court and the parties, at the guidance of the court, can entrust and have entrusted BCI & BIMC. In most situations, BCI & BIMC is entrusted by the parties who choose an applicable foreign law and therefore need to ascertain that foreign law, while a small amount of cases is entrusted by the court due to procedural issues in litigation.

Q: Who pays the fees for ascertainment for litigation, the court or the parties?

A: Summarizing from the existing judgments and rulings published in China Judgements Online, the fees for ascertainment are usually categorized as “other litigation fees” and borne by the parties. (Typical cases can be found at: http://cicc.court.gov.cn/html/1/218/103/329/333/index.html)

Q: What makes BCI & BIMC different from law firms?

A: BCI & BIMC is a professional platform specializing in foreign law ascertainment. Foreign lawyers form an important composition of its legal experts pool.

In the past, the ascertainment of foreign law was usually undertaken by lawyers. However, the court expressed two concerns towards this method. One is that the court was worried about lack of neutrality of the “legal experts” and the other is that the court could not be certain on the professionalism of the “legal experts”. It is under this context that third-party organizations providing foreign law ascertainment service have come into existence.

Additionally, the number of overseas branches of a law firm and its cooperation resources are limited. BCI & BIMC, as a service platform, gathers a vast pool of legal experts and reduces the cost of searching suitable experts for lawyers or the parties in question.

Q: What “law” can be ascertained by BCI & BIMC?

A: For the engagements handled by BCI & BIMC, the scope of law is quite broad, including statutes, judicial precedents, international conventions and bilateral agreements etc. Entrustments from enterprises may also include laws and regulations on market access, labor, tax, intellectual property, corporate issues and related technical standards etc.

Q: What countries and regions can be ascertained?

A: Up to now, BCI & BIMC has over a hundred engagements and inquiries from the courts, enterprises and government bodies and other entities, covering 107 countries and regions.

Q: What are the fees for ascertainment of law?

A: According to the Rules of Ascertainment of Law of BCI & BIMC (For Trial Implementation), the fees consist of:

(1) case management fee; 

(2) service fee to the legal expert, based on specific entrusted matters, the complexity of ascertainment work and the amount of work; 

(3) fees for notarization & certification, translation and other specific requests of the entrusting party.

Q: Can BCI & BIMC ascertain Chinese law or match Chinese expert witnesses for overseas clients?

A: Yes, BCI & BIMC offers a two-way service. It provides not only ascertainment of foreign law for domestic clients, but also Chinese law for overseas clients.

Q: How can I apply for foreign law ascertainment?

A: You may submit your application on BCI & BIMC’s one-stop legal service platform at: https://www.bcisz.org/plug/AP/?fromcicc.

*The original text is Chinese and has been translated into English for reference only. If there is any inconsistency or ambiguity between the Chinese version and the English version, the Chinese version shall prevail.