China backs plan to set up financial court in Shanghai as crackdown on freewheeling firms continues

China’s leadership has endorsed a plan to establish a specialised court for finance in Shanghai, following an intensified crackdown on freewheeling asset buyers, to weed out unscrupulous financial conglomerates.

The Communist Party of China’s Leading Group for Comprehensively Deepening Reforms announced that the court will aim to “better serve the real economy, ward off financial risks and deepen financial reforms”, after a meeting chaired by President Xi Jinping on Wednesday, according to state news agency Xinhua.

“The decision echoes legal professionals’ calls to set up a court that is able to better handle finance-related lawsuits,” said Yan Yiming, a Shanghai-based lawyer. “But it is more important for the judges to respect the rule of law, so as to improve the country’s legal system and bolster global investors’ confidence in the mainland economy.”

The court, called Shanghai Finance Court, has been in the works for about two years, as part of the city’s efforts to hone its image as a global financial hub, according to two judges with the city’s intermediate courts.

Shanghai plans to transform itself into a global financial centre by 2020, and the announcement by the Communist Party’s high-profile team is being viewed as a symbolic move to push ahead with this ambition.

Tribunals that specialise in financial offences and finance-related civil cases at all levels of the city’s courts will be merged to set up the court, according to the judges.