Entrepreneurs and legal experts have welcomed a move by Shanghai and its neighbouring provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui to regulate cross-regional market enforcement, saying it will offer relief from arbitrary inspections, overlapping investigations and profit-driven law enforcement.
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The four jurisdictions have introduced China’s first mechanism designed to rein in cross-jurisdictional and profit-driven law enforcement, establishing a formal coordination framework to standardise cross-regional enforcement practices.
“If these new measures are effectively implemented and promoted to more provinces across China, they’ll offer much-needed safety and confidence, especially for private enterprises,” said Chris Liang, co-founder of a private technology company based in Guangdong province.
He said there had been many “truly alarming” cases in recent years of private business owners being detained by enforcement authorities from outside their regions who were acting on unclear jurisdictional grounds.
Deng Jianping, a senior lawyer at Guangdong Lawsons Law Office who serves as legal counsel for multiple companies, said many enterprises had reported frequent but unreasonable checks by different departments under various pretexts, which had severely disrupted production and exhausted management resources.
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“Amid growing economic headwinds, frequent and disorderly enforcement actions undoubtedly undermine corporate vitality and disrupt normal economic activity,” Deng said.