The Symposium on Recent Update on Hong Kong and Mainland China Arbitration, jointly organized by Beijing International Arbitration Forum and Hong Kong International Arbitration Center, was held at Poly Plaza in Beijing on March 1, 2018. The Symposium was attended by a number of prominent experts in the field of arbitration from both the Mainland and Hong Kong, including Mr. Matthew Gearing, QC, Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre; Mr. Lu Song, an independent arbitrator; Mr. Jerry Zhang, Linli Law; Mr. Lbin Zhang, Broad & Bright; Mr. Fang Zhao, Huizhong Law Firm; and Mariana Zhong, Dechert; and Dr. Lu Panfeng, an associate professor at CASS Institute of International Law.

At the symposium, Dr. Fu Panfeng gave a presentation entitled “China’s Recent Reform of the Arbitration Prior Reporting System”, in which he reviewed and analyzed a series of important documents of judicial interpretation on the application for verification of arbitration cases under judicial review issued by the Supreme People’s Court, especially Relevant Provisions of the Supreme People's Court on Issues concerning Applications for Verification of Arbitration Cases under Judicial Review (the Provisions). He pointed out that, compared to the previous systems of application for verification, the main breakthrough made by the Provisions is that it extends the scope of the application of the system to the field of domestic arbitration, which is conducive to unifying the standard of judicial review of domestic arbitration and reducing incidents of arbitrary annulment of or refusal to enforce arbitration awards or declaration of the invalidity of arbitration agreement by courts. In the presentation, Dr. Fu also pointed out the breakthroughs made by the Provisions with respect to the participation by parties to arbitration and a series of dilemmas faced by the current system in practice.