New | China’s high court orders blanket ban to deny debt defaulters jobs, travel and credit
China’s Supreme People’s Court on Friday introduced a raft of restrictions against debt defaulters who fail to meet court orders to pay back what they owe.
Under the blanket ban, they will be prohibited from travelling by air or soft-sleeper train, and will also be banned from applying for loans or credit cards.
The court also ordered employment restrictions, barring them from taking positions as legal representative, board member or senior executive in companies.
The court had introduced a “defaulter blacklist” last October, a public database on the court’s official website that discloses the identity of the debtors who refuse to fulfil court orders – which include compensation payments – by altering bank statements, falsifying evidence and violence.
As of Wednesday, the database had listed 55,920 defaulters, and recorded more than two million page views, Jiang Bixin, vice-chief of the court, said on Friday. He said 1,669 names had been crossed out from the list after they "fulfilled their duties".
In its latest move to tackle the problem, the court signed a memorandum with China Railway Corporation and six central government departments on Friday, which detailed regulations on the ban’s implementation.
On the same day, the People’s Bank of China, the nation’s central bank, vowed to crack down on companies with bad credit. The bank said it would launch a probe into the companies with unsustainable debts and run by local governments, and would close down the “incompetent” ones when necessary, Xinhua reported.
