Hangzhou gets country’s fi rst Internet court to deal with rapidly expanding lawsuits

China set up its fi rst Internet Court in Hangzhou, East China’s Zhejiang Province on Monday, which experts believe will off er convenience for the city’s many online businesses.

The Hangzhou Internet Court will hear seven kinds of lawsuits, including those which involve online shopping, online debt contracts and online copyright disputes, according to its offi cial website.

Every step of the cases it hears will be completely processed online – from the fi ling of lawsuits to trials conducted via video link.

All Internet- related cases in the city will gradually be separated from the existing trial system and be taken over by the new court, according to Chen Guomeng, president of the High People’s Court of Zhejiang Province.

As Hangzhou is home to many Internet fi rms, such as Alibaba and NetEase, it has a particularly high number of e- business lawsuits, Xie Yongjiang, a professor at the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, told the Global Times.

The number of Internet lawsuits handled by Hang- zhou’s courts increased from 600 cases in 2013 to over 10,000 cases in 2016.

“Online courts signifi cantly reduce the cost and length of lawsuits. A trial could be resolved with every participant sitting in front of a computer,” Xie said, adding that specially trained legal personnel will be employed by the court.

A judge in East China’s Jiangsu Province told the Global Times on condition of anonymity that many courts already off er online services but lack specialized personnel.

The anonymous judge believes the new court will likely “directly intervene in trade disputes on popular shopping sites, such as Taobao.”