Supreme Court: Improve the rules for artificial intelligence, Algorithm, and unfair competition involving data

On December 26, the Supreme People’s Court issued the Outline of the Sixth Five-Year Reform Program of the People’s Court (2024-2028) (hereinafter referred to as the “Outline”).

Ma Zhonghua, Vice President of the Supreme People’s Court, introduced at the press conference that the ‘Outline’ specifies 45 major reform measures in 9 aspects and more than 200 specific reform tasks. It is a guiding document for the planning and implementation of the people’s court reform in the current and future periods.

Some of the issues that have received significant attention in recent years have been addressed to some extent in the Outline. For example, the Outline proposes to prevent and correct economic disputes through administrative and criminal means to optimize the business environment. In the face of artificial intelligence and algorithm updates, it is necessary to improve the adjudication rules in emerging areas, including labor dispute rules for new forms of employment such as food delivery riders and online anchors. At the same time, it emphasizes deepening judicial openness and reaffirms the rule of anonymous online documents to prevent infringement of parties’ privacy or disclosure of trade secrets.

Focus 1: Business Environment and Legitimate Rights and Interests of Entrepreneurs

Strengthening judicial protection of property rights is the first point Maowenzhong detailed at the press conference.

The Guidelines propose to protect various ownership economic rights in an equal and lasting manner in accordance with the law, and to impose the same responsibility, same crime, and same punishment for acts that infringe upon various ownership economic rights and legitimate interests in accordance with the law. It also mentions improving the mechanism for handling cross-border criminal, administrative, and civil cases, clarifying the boundaries between common criminal and non-criminal behaviors in cases involving enterprises, and preventing and correcting the use of administrative and criminal means to intervene in economic disputes.

Since the beginning of this year, the “minor offenses with heavy penalties” and the “long-distance fishing” cases that involve profit-seeking and cross-regional law enforcement have caused a lot of controversy.

Si Yanli, Deputy Director of the Research Office of the Supreme People’s Court, said at the meeting that the Outline will optimize the business environment in three aspects:

The first is to strengthen judicial protection of property rights, including improving the mechanism for handling criminal, administrative, and civil cross cases, clarifying the boundaries between common criminal and non-criminal acts in cases involving enterprises, and improving the effective prevention and lawful identification and correction mechanisms for errors and injustices in such cases. The preservation procedures will be strictly regulated in accordance with the law, etc. According to Si Yanli, these measures are aimed at enhancing the personal and property security of entrepreneurs, allowing them to focus on entrepreneurship, investment, and operation with peace of mind.

Second, regulate market operation and maintain a fair and competitive market environment. The ‘Outline’ specifies the need to strengthen judicial regulation of monopolistic and unfair competition behaviors, and to formulate and improve relevant judicial interpretations. In particular, improve the punitive compensation system in the fields of food and drug safety, intellectual property rights, product defects, environmental pollution, and ecological damage.

Third, improve the treatment and exit mechanism of operating entities. The ‘Outline’ proposes to promote the improvement of the corporate bankruptcy mechanism, explore the establishment of a personal bankruptcy system, further play the role of bankruptcy trials in resolving market risks, protecting the legitimate rights and interests of all parties of operating entities, and promoting the survival of the fittest in enterprises, and promote the orderly exit of ‘zombie enterprises’ from the market, achieving optimal allocation of market resources.

Focus 2: New Forms of Employment and Emerging Technologies

In the emerging fields, the ‘Outline’ has detailed discussions on several hot technologies, including the rules of judgment for perfecting artificial intelligence, algorithms, and new types of cases involving improper competition in data; perfecting the rules of judgment for financial disputes in emerging fields such as digital currency, internet finance, cross-border investment and financing, and offshore finance.

In the face of the impact of technology on employment, the ‘Outline’ especially mentions the need to improve the connection of labor dispute mediation and arbitration, business collaboration, information sharing mechanisms, and improve the rules for the adjudication of labor dispute cases under delayed retirement and new forms of employment.

The new employment form is a concept that has been widely mentioned in the past two years. The 9th national survey on the status of the workforce in 2023 showed that the total number of workers in the country is about 402 million, with about 84 million workers in the new employment form, accounting for 21% of the total number of workers in the country. These workers are mainly truck drivers, online car-hailing drivers, couriers, and food delivery personnel.

In the past two years, the Supreme People’s Court has repeatedly emphasized the issue of new employment relationships. On December 23, the Supreme People’s Court released four guiding cases on labor disputes in new forms of employment for the first time. The Supreme People’s Court introduced at the press conference that from 2020 to 2024, the national courts have accepted about 420,000 civil disputes involving new forms of employment. The disputes are concentrated on labor relations - in practice, many companies require workers to register as “individual industrial and commercial households” before signing contracts in order to avoid establishing labor relations.

The Supreme People’s Court believes that, in this situation, even if the worker is required to register as a “self-employed business owner”, it does not prevent the worker from establishing a labor relationship with the employer. People’s courts cannot simply determine based on the cooperation agreement signed by both parties. It is necessary to consider the degree to which the worker autonomously determines the work time and workload, whether the worker needs to comply with relevant work rules, algorithm rules, labor discipline, and reward and punishment measures, etc. If it constitutes dominant labor management, it should be recognized as the existence of a legal labor relationship.

Focus Three: Openness of Judicial Documents

Deepening judicial openness is also an important task of this "Outline ". The"Outline " proposes to improve the data resources of the"FaDaWang "and the people’s court case library, the intelligent recognition correlation and precise push mechanism of the cases in progress, and improve the mechanism for the disclosure of judicial information such as judgments, court activities, and trial procedures.

At the same time, the hidden name rules for online documents are also reiterated: on the basis of deepening judicial openness, we must adhere to the hidden name rules for online documents and the rules for open court hearings, and promote the strengthening of supervision of improper use of judicial public information.

In December last year, the Supreme People’s Court responded to the controversy over the disclosure of judicial documents, stating that the online documents contain a large number of simple procedures or small claims cases heard by grassroots courts, which not only have limited legal significance, but also carry various factual and identity information. Some parties involved in labor disputes have been repeatedly rejected for jobs because their relevant documents were made public online. Some parties involved have experienced family discord and marital discord due to the disclosure of pre-marital information in online documents. Some private enterprises have encountered obstacles in financing, business cooperation, and participation in bidding due to the disclosure of litigation-related information, etc. Therefore, there are often parties, including companies and enterprises, who file complaints.

In the following year, the Supreme Court emphasized the importance of the rule of anonymity in online legal documents through various means. For example, in the Supreme Court’s work report during the two sessions, it emphasized the need to conceal relevant identifying information in documents to ensure that the lives and work of the parties involved, as well as the operation and development of their businesses, are not affected by the online publication of these documents.

During the press conference, when asked about the overall situation of judicial openness, Si Yanli said that from January to November this year, more than 8.1 million judgments have been newly published on China Judgments Online by courts nationwide, an increase of 67.3% compared with the same period last year. In particular, the number of judgments newly published by the Supreme People’s Court and various high-level people’s courts is five times that of the same period last year.

Siyali said that the next step is to continuously expand the scope of judicial openness, mainly to promote standardized construction, prevent violations of the privacy rights and personal information of parties, as well as the disclosure of commercial secrets affecting the legitimate rights and interests of enterprises, and resolutely eliminate irregularities such as preventing the public from attending court hearings in disguise.

(Source: 21st Century Economic Report)

Source: East Money

Author: 21st Century Business Herald