Bankruptcy tribunal helps 80 companies and around 100,000 workers

A Beijing court has "revived" nearly 80 companies on the verge of bankruptcy through judicial procedures over the past five years, securing 96,000 jobs.

Data released by the Beijing No 1 Intermediate People's Court showed on Wednesday that its bankruptcy tribunal, which was established in January 2019, has concluded 580 cases, of which 561 involved small and medium-sized companies.

"The efficiency of handling the cases has played a big role in serving the capital's high-quality development, maintaining social stability and building a sound business environment," Ma Qiang, president of the court, told a news conference on Wednesday.

To ensure the case handling, he said the court formulated and issued a few judicial rules and guidelines on how to restructure small and medium-sized enterprises, emphasizing "which is also conducive to improving the legal system regarding bankruptcy."

In addition, judges responsible for dealing with the cases have been required to attach greater importance to the placement of the involved enterprises' workers, so that they could be paid during the period of case handling, he said, regarding it as a crucial move to guarantee people's livelihood.

"What we have done is to improve the quality of the bankruptcy trials and made the process of our case handling more professional," said Ma Laike, vice-president of the court.

In the past decade, China has strengthened efforts to apply rule by law to accelerate bankruptcies of zombie companies and help struggling enterprises restructure.

Besides the Beijing bankruptcy tribunal, more similar trial teams have also been set up across the country, such as in Shanghai and Shenzhen, Guangdong province.

Latest data released by the Supreme People's Court, China's top court, in March showed that 29,000 bankruptcy cases were concluded in 2023, up 68.8 percent year-on-year.