Verification of a Chinese counterparty. Service offer

Companies registered in any of China’s provinces are verifiable in the following public and private systems:

1. National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System (全国企业信用信息公示系统) – it is the closest equivalent of a public register of companies and is maintained by China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR).

This system shows data compiled on the basis of information that all legal entities and individual entrepreneurs disclose to government authorities (both federal and regional), chambers of commerce and other licensed bodies (such as banks) in the course of their business.

The System is updated in real time as soon as any changes have been made by the authority to which a company has submitted the information.

A search for a company can be done using the following data:

• Company’s registration number;
• Full or abbreviated company name (in Chinese);
• Company’s unified social credit code.

Users can access the following information about a company entered in the System:

1. Company name;
2. Unified social credit code of the company;
3. Type of the company;
4. Share capital of the company;
5. Incorporation date of the company;
6. Registration authority;
7. Status of the company;
8. Validity of the company’s licence;
9. Registered office address of the company;
10. Line of business of the company;
11. Date of the latest update.

The information about the officers of the company is also searchable:

1. Shareholders of the company. Some records also show the amount of registered or paid-up capital of each shareholder;
2. Officers of the company (主要人员信息) – shareholders, directors, general managers, board members, controllers;
3. Legal representative of the company (法定代表人);
4. Branches (对外投资信息).

2. Court Enforcement Information Publicity (中国执行信息公开网) – a Chinese register of bad debtors (the enforcement proceedings database allows you to check whether your counterparty is currently subject to any enforcement actions under a court order).

This register includes individuals and legal entities that are capable of executing a court judgement, but are evading to do so. For example, these may be judgements on court-approved claims of contractors, banks or employees of a company. As soon as a company fulfils its obligation, its details are removed from the website.

The service was developed and is operated by the Supreme Court of the People’s Republic of China. If information about a company gets in this resource, all government authorities are obliged to restrict any actions taken in relation to such a company until it is struck off the register.

A company included in this register has its activity limited as much as possible until the court order is enforced.

3. China Judgements Online – a fully-fledged court judgement search service. It is also operated by the Supreme Court of the People’s Republic of China.

The website shows court judgements of Chinese state courts of all instances and in all provinces.

A search can be done by:

• keywords;
• case number;
• court or region;
• name of the party or its representative;
• name of the judge;
• legal norm applied in the case;
• other more specific criteria.

4. Credit publicity platform of import and export business of Customs of the PRC (中国海关企业进出口信用信息公示平台) – it can be called a customs integrity system.

This system is similar in many ways to a national credit reporting agency, but it only includes companies that are engaged in import and export business and, consequently, registered as such with the General Administration of Customs of the People’s Republic of China.

In addition to the background information available in the general system and the fact that a company is registered as an importer or exporter, the system shows:

• type of import and export operations of the company;
• company’s status in the logistics chain (importer/exporter/intermediary, etc.);
• customs checkpoint of the company;
• any customs violations.

The home page of the website provides access to several lists maintained by the General Administration of Customs. In particular, there are lists of unreliable and highly unreliable entities, as well as entities with special licences and entities qualified to supply regulated products or to supply to/from regulated regions.

5. China has a Credit Reference Centre maintained by the People’s Bank of China (the local Central Bank).

Since 1 January 2021, it has been in charge of registration and recording of pledges on certain types of movable property:

• production equipment;
• raw materials;
• materials;
• semi-finished products;
• finished goods;
• accounts receivable;
• warehouse receipts.

A record of pledge in this system means that a company attracted bank financing (loan) providing this property as collateral and the loan has not been repaid yet.

No information in a similar format can be obtained with regard to immovable property rights (including mortgages) – China still does not have such a register.

The most popular of such services is QiChaCha (企查查), it is the most commonly used and advanced service for checking counterparties.

It collects information from all of the above sources (and more) and structures it in an easy-to-read form. It even builds diagrams showing the relationship between individuals and legal entities.

Among other things, the service enables the searcher to find out:

• the company’s shareholding structure (including beneficial ownership information in the case of indirect ownership);
• the company’s valid business licences;
• the company’s registered patents and trademarks.

If QiChaCha is not suitable for any reason, you can go to its competitors. The most commonly used similar services are:

• Qixin (启信宝);
• Tianyancha (天眼查);
• Aiqicha (爱企查).