Hong Kong businesses are increasingly finding themselves doing business with mainland companies and individuals and finding themselves required to "know their mainland customers" via a quick background check.
Although overall transparency on the mainland remains limited, it has improved since the State Council adopted Regulations on Open Government Information (OGI), and particularly since the Communist Party Central Committee held its third and fourth plenums.
The mainland government is making some "big data" available online, so it is easier to do some basic due diligence, free of charge and from your smartphone or computer. Knowledge of Chinese is required because English information is either incomplete or not available at all. Below is a list of some useful websites:
The mainland version of the company registry, the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC) -
www.saic.gov.cn - has a platform through which local company registries can be accessed. With details such as a company's location, it is possible to check whether a company is in good standing or on a government watch list. The Shenzhen version of the SAIC can be accessed through the Market and Quality Supervision Commission of Shenzhen -
www.szscjg.gov.cn The databases are in Chinese only.
The mainland's highest court, the Supreme People's Court has created a database -
shixin.court.gov.cn - that enables checks on whether a business or individual has failed to pay a court judgment. This includes any orders issued by a mainland court to enforce an arbitral award. A quick check reveals that some Hong Kong companies are on the list. This database is in Chinese only.
