Shanghai, a central urban area, is at the forefront of the World Bank's business environment assessment index.

On June 12, the West Bank Digital Valley International Legal Service Cluster Innovation and Development Conference was held at the West Bank Wisdom Tower. At the conference, the city’s first international mutual recognition of legal service institutions, the “Xuhui Agreement”, was innovatively launched. The Xuhui District International Commercial Mediation Center and the Intellectual Property Mediation Center were unveiled simultaneously, and the “dual base” cooperation in the cultivation and practice of high-end foreign-related legal talents was launched.

This time, Xuhui innovatively launched the city’s first foreign-related mutual recognition and cooperation agreement, the "Xuhui Agreement on International Mutual Recognition and Cooperation of Legal Service Institutions and Establishment of Partnerships", which was initiated by 10 regional leading foreign-related law firms including Jun He, Jingtian & Gongcheng, Huiye, Long An, Huacheng, Dehe Hantong, Anjie Shize, Bixing, Jingheng, and Guangfa, and jointly signed by 19 overseas legal service institutions from 17 countries and regions around the world. A liaison office has been established in the Digital Valley of Xuhui Riverside West Bank as a daily liaison agency for the implementation of the agreement.

The reporter learned that the "MTCC Xuhui Agreement" relies on the legal service resources consisting of more than 190 law firms and more than 4,300 practicing lawyers in Xuhui District. It will promote the cooperation and development in the field of international legal services by building a business cooperation and exchange platform, organizing international seminars and exchanges and visits, and provide solid legal guarantees for enterprises to "go global" at a high level and "bring in" with high quality.

Xuhui is one of the most competitive new opening-up areas and the preferred destinations for foreign investment in Shanghai's central urban area. It has more than 3,400 foreign-funded enterprises, 161 regional headquarters of multinational companies and foreign-funded R&D centers, and the number continues to rank among the top central urban areas. From January to April this year, the district received US$1.65 billion in foreign investment, a year-on-year increase of 192%, ranking first in the city.

Behind this "report card", it is inseparable from the practical measures taken by Xuhui to continuously create a market-oriented, legal and international first-class business environment. At present, Xuhui has issued the city's first district-level implementation plan for optimizing the legal business environment, and has built a "Legal Service Station for Innovation and Entrepreneurship of Returned Overseas Students" and a legal service window for the "International Talent Port" in the West Bank Digital Valley. In the Xujiahui business district, Xuhui District has formed a special legal service team for foreign executives of enterprises; in the Maple Forest International Science and Technology Innovation Park, the city's first public legal service living room for enterprises was opened to provide full-field legal services around the entire life cycle of enterprises.

"Rule of law is the best business environment." Wang Weijun, Secretary General of Shanghai International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission, introduced that the World Bank's business environment assessment index sets "dispute resolution" as one of the ten special chapters, and there are 19 indicators involving arbitration. The Shanghai International Arbitration Center was established by the Shanghai International Trade Promotion Council in 1988 with the approval of the municipal government. Over the past 36 years, it has made more than 26,000 arbitration awards, with parties involved in the cases spread across the country and 85 countries and regions around the world.

In 2021, Shanghai ranked among the top ten most popular arbitration venues in the world for the first time and became one of the first pilot cities to build an international commercial arbitration center. Last year, the city accepted 4,879 arbitration cases involving a dispute amount of 70.807 billion yuan, of which 2,572 cases were in which neither party was a Shanghai party, accounting for more than half.

Wang Weijun said that in recent years, the importance of arbitration in protecting the business environment for scientific and technological innovation has become increasingly apparent. The legal risks faced by enterprises can be divided into the start-up period, growth period and mature period. Among them, the legal risks in the start-up period include issues such as the company's equity structure and the distribution of rights and obligations between start-ups; the legal risks faced in the growth period mainly come from the protection of the company's core business model and the control of core intellectual property rights. The legal risks faced by enterprises in the mature stage include financing arrangements such as VC or PE, as well as the company's own strategic investment, mergers and acquisitions, and expansion.

At present, the cases accepted by the Shanghai International Arbitration Center are increasingly closely linked to the construction of Shanghai's "Five Centers", spanning the Internet, education and training, biomedicine, new energy vehicles, new materials, financial technology, advanced manufacturing, big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, MCN, cross-border e-commerce and other fields. In terms of the digital transformation of arbitration, Shanghai has established the "Data Arbitration Center" in 2021 and issued the "Data Arbitration Rules" in 2024. Since May last year, the arbitration digitalization platform named "SHIACE-Platform" has filed 9,332 cases online, accepted 6,442 cases, and has more than 1,100 registered arbitrators in the system.

At the meeting, the newly established Shanghai Xuhui Wujie International Intellectual Property Mediation Center and Shanghai Xuhui Law and Justice International Commercial Mediation Center were unveiled at the same time, which will create a first-class international, professional, networked, and intelligent commercial mediation service organization and a high-level exchange platform. The newly established "West Bank Digital Valley International Legal Service Cluster Area Foreign-related Legal High-end Talent Cultivation Practice Dual Base Cooperation Alliance" was jointly initiated by four famous law schools in Shanghai and the Xuhui District Talent Work Bureau and the District Justice Bureau. The first batch of members include industry organizations such as the Xuhui District Lawyers' Committee, Xuhui Binjiang Co-construction and Co-governance Alliance, and Xuhui District Foreign Investment Enterprises Association, International Media Port, Hong Kong Land, West Bank Group, and many brand law firms in Xuhui District.

Wang Hua, deputy secretary of the Xuhui District Committee and acting district mayor, said that as one of the first demonstration areas for the construction of a law-based government in the country, Xuhui has long attached importance to the development of the legal services industry and the cultivation of legal services talents. From January to April this year, the revenue growth rate of Xuhui's legal services industry ranked among the top in the city's central urban areas, and its contribution to the industry ranked first in the city. In the next step, Xuhui will continue to expand the circle of friends of the "MTCC Xuhui Agreement", relying on the "double aggregation" advantages of the West Bank's technological innovation industry and professional legal service resources, and fully promote the construction of the West Bank Digital Valley International Legal Services Cluster, and contribute Xuhui's strength to the construction of the Shanghai International Legal Services Center.