This note highlights four changes introduced by the amended PRC Arbitration Law. The sections below are ordered by practical impact (from immediate deadline risk to structural drafting points).
Articles 41 and 72 should be read together: Article 41 governs how arbitral documents (including the award) are served, and Article 72 measures the set-aside window from the date the award is received. Once electronic service is used, internal escalation speed becomes a legal risk issue—not merely an operational one.
The statutory time limit to apply to set aside an award is now three months from the date of receipt of the award, shortened from the former six-month period.
Article 41 allows parties to agree a reasonable method of service for arbitral documents. If the parties do not agree, or the agreement is unclear, service is effected in the manner prescribed by the applicable institutional rules. Many institutions’ rules provide for—and routinely apply—electronic service (email and/or case platform notifications).
Because the limitation period runs from receipt, the start date often turns on how service is effected in the arbitration. Where service is electronic, PRC practice commonly treats the relevant date as the date on which the service information reaches the addressee’s designated system (for example, the relevant email system or platform account). For multinational groups (local entity + HQ legal + external counsel), this can mean the clock starts running before HQ legal becomes aware.
Article 81 makes the seat (place of arbitration) a central organising concept. Unless the parties separately agree otherwise, the seat is the basis for the law of the arbitral procedure (lex arbitri), the court with supervisory jurisdiction, and the legal place where the award is deemed to be made.
Absent a separate agreement on the procedural law, the seat serves as the basis for:
Where the seat is not agreed or is unclear, Article 81 applies a clear hierarchy:
State the seat expressly. If the parties intend to agree any procedural arrangement beyond what the law of the seat and the chosen rules provide, state it expressly and separately to avoid downstream disputes.
Article 11 confirms that arbitral activities may be conducted online through information networks, and that online proceedings have the same legal effect as offline proceedings, unless a party expressly objects. This is best understood as legislative confirmation of a modern mode of hearing and case management already adopted by many institutions.
For multinational parties, the immediate benefit is practical: key personnel and counsel can participate without travelling to China, allowing hearings and procedural conferences to be scheduled faster and run with the relevant decision-makers in the room (virtually).
Many institutional rules historically placed the choice of in-person versus remote hearings largely within the tribunal’s discretion after consulting the parties. Article 11 shifts the baseline: online conduct is permitted unless a party expressly objects.
The statute does not specify whether an express objection must be unanimous in multi-party cases. Where one party seeks an online hearing and another objects, the tribunal will still need to manage the process—including recording the objection, deciding timing and format, and considering whether a fully offline or hybrid arrangement is appropriate.
Pre-arbitration routes for evidence and property preservation exist under the PRC Civil Procedure Law (CPL), including evidence preservation in urgent cases (Article 84(2) CPL) and pre-arbitration preservation measures (Article 104(1) CPL). The amended Arbitration Law operationalises these mechanisms within the arbitration framework and, importantly, expressly recognises “do / refrain” measures (conduct preservation) as interim relief in support of arbitration.
Article 39 confirms that interim measures in support of arbitration include not only property preservation, but also court measures requiring a party to take certain actions or refrain from taking certain actions. In urgent circumstances, a party to an arbitration agreement may apply to the competent PRC court before commencing arbitration by reference to the CPL.
Article 58 maintains the evidence preservation route during arbitration (the institution transmits the application to the primary-level people’s court at the location of the evidence) and expressly confirms an urgent pre-arbitration direct-to-court route by reference to the CPL.
These provisions strengthen the statutory footing for urgent preservation relief in support of PRC-seated arbitrations and reduce room for procedural debate about how pre-arbitration preservation should be deployed in the arbitration context. This matters in cross-border deals that choose a PRC seat while selecting a foreign substantive law to govern the underlying contract: the substantive law choice can be maintained while a clearer path remains available to seek urgent preservation from PRC courts at the outset of a dispute.